The End of Time
by Velkan The Impaler
Summary: Ross and Mike discover a mysterious portal in a cave that takes them to another time period and another actionpacked adventure begins. Complete. Please R
1. Chapter 1

Hi, thanks for stopping to read The End of Time. This is the first Ross and Mike story I've written since May 2005 and I've been looking forward to writing their eighteenth adventure for a while now. (it's also a sequel to Camp Glaregon, which can also be found in the Goosebumps section)

But before I start, there are a few things I want to say. A month ago I put up a "story" in this section called Ross and Mike Summary. It summarized the previous seventeen adventures in their series, so when references are made to them in this story, it'll make sense. So reading that is strongly recommended before the references start coming later in the story.

And before now, when writing Ross and Mike stories, they were mostly about the story. (that was what I considered them known for) This one will still have a plot that will advance, but it's also going to have a lot of action in it. So at times, it may seem more like a story with random fights in it than one with an actual plot.

Also, if you've read any of my other stories, you know that I usually try to make my chapters at least 2,000 words long and have them be over 30 chapters (with the exception of Revelations and Revenge). Well, this story is going to be MUCH shorter than that, meaning fewer and shorter chapters.

Lastly, I'll gladly accept any reviews you give me, whether they be praising my story or criticizing it. Please tell me what you think of this in a review or any tips you have for future writing. But please DON'T tell me any ideas you have for the next chapter, any new characters I should introduce or anything that would otherwise change the plot. I have this entire story outlined; I know what's going to happen in the final scene of this story and every other part leading up to that last scene.

All right, enough about that. The first Ross and Mike story in almost sixteen months is about to begin.

--------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------ ---------------

It was a clear, but cool morning. The sunlight poured in through the bedroom window. It made the dark blue carpet look brighter and the pale walls more colorful and lively.

Moments later, a loud alarm on a clock started buzzing. It wasn't even 6:00 in the morning, but the clock was going off, indicating to whoever used it that it was time to start the day.

A hand pressed down on one of the buttons on the clock, shutting the alarm off. From a bed right next to the stand the clock was sitting upon, a boy started rising.

The boy had short, dark hair that was normally slicked downward but still barely made it a third of the way to his dark brown eyebrows. He was pretty skinny, but still had plenty of muscle tone and physical strength in himself. His eyes were a hazel shade and were barely open. His oval head slowly started rising from the soft, comfy pillow.

His name was Ross McKane. He was a sophomore in High School and was about three months shy of his sixteenth birthday. Slowly, he forced himself out of bed. He was wearing only a pair of plaid boxers and a gray t-shirt. As he made his way out of the bed, he felt something cold touch his chest, immediately waking him up a little.

"Huh?" Ross asked in a standard, flat teenaged voice. "What's this?"

Ross reached under his shirt and pulled out whatever it was that he felt. It was a necklace comprised of several think, silver-colored links. At the front of it was a mysterious circle shaped pendent that had a soft, but cold blue in the middle of it.

"When did I get this?" Ross asked as he stared at the necklace in his hand. "I definitely wasn't wearing this thing when I went to bed…" Indeed, Ross had no memory of where he got the necklace from. No memory at all…

Ross spent the rest of his morning doing what he normally does: showering, getting dressed, getting all his things ready for school and heading out to the bus stop. It was a cool March morning. The sun was shining clearly and warmed whatever its rays touched. Ross just sighed as he readjusted the backpack straps he was wearing on his shoulders as he thought about what the day would bring him.

"Hey, Ross!" called out a voice.

Ross turned around and a smile appeared over his otherwise bored face. "Hey, Mike!"

It was Mike, Ross's best friend. Ross and Mike had been good friends for about four and a half years now. His hair was a lot longer and thicker than Ross's and went about three-quarters of the way down his forehead. He didn't try to make it look straight or neat like Ross did. He was about five feet, three inches-about half four inches shorter than Ross was. His voice was still almost as high pitched and kid-like as it was when the two friends first met, but there was now an obvious deep tone and sense of maturity in it.

"How's it hanging?" Mike said to Ross, trying to create small talk.

"Ah, same old, same old," Ross said, turning his attention away from Mike and out in front of him to the empty road as the two of them awaited their school bus.

"Cool," Mike said, not knowing what else to say. "So…how's Alicia doing?"

"She's doing fine," Ross said. Alicia was Ross's girlfriend. They started seeing each other when Ross's parents got back together after being divorced for twelve years. It was hard to believe that it felt like a year and a half had passed since then.

A while later, the school bus finally came and picked the two friends up to take them to school. The ride was boring, as always. Just like how the first four periods of the day were boring before lunch time.

Lunch time wasn't a lot better, but at least Ross could spend it with Mike and Alicia. The three of them sat at a table together and talked about what their day had been like, if anything funny happened, or any stereotypical gossip about the teachers that students made.

While Mike was listening to his iPod, Ross had to sit through Alicia reading through a magazine about fashion accessories-stuff Ross honestly couldn't have cared less about.

"Did you see the picture of this dress!" Alicia asked as she flipped through the pages of the magazine, making sure Ross saw every single article of clothing in the catalogues. "I saw _the_ most random picture for an ad ever! It has a girl wearing a dress, and she's kneeling on the beach and _holding a bunny!"_

Ross pretended to be shocked. "Wow," he said rather lifelessly.

"I know!" Alicia said loudly. "Oh, by the way, I just got _really_ hungry, so I'm gonna go up to the vending machine and get a box of M&M's, k?"

"Sure," Ross said pleasantly.

Alicia got up from her chair and ran over to a vending machine across the cafeteria. Ross let out a giant sigh of relief and covered his eyes in his arm for a few seconds. When he looked up, he saw Mike was grinning at him.

"What's so funny?" Ross asked plainly.

"That look-you look like you've just had to sit through a lecture on harvesting dirt!" Mike said, still listening to his iPod.

"Heh. Try listening to complaints about prom dresses every day, _then_ tell me what I look like! What are you listening to, anyway?"

"U2," Mike said with a smile on his face. "I downloaded it last night, along with some other songs from Sting and Metallica."

Ross smirked. "You're a real man of the eighties, aren't you, Mike? And that really says something, considering we weren't around then."

"Duh, of course we didn't exist in the eighties. Quick, before Alicia comes back-you want to get together this afternoon and just hang out at the brook by your house?"

"Why do we have to plan it before Alicia gets back?" Ross asked.

"Because if she hears us making plans, she'll invite herself and before you know it, the two of you will be kissing more than hanging out."

"Fine, I got no problem with it. What time?"

"4:00 good?"

"Sounds great. See you then."

The rest of the day dragged on. After Ross and Mike had completed the remainder of their classes for that day, both of them got home on the school bus. It was about 3:00 by the time Ross got home, so he went into his room and started working on his homework. The time slowly ticked by, but he put as much effort into the work as he could. After that, he went outside to the brook by his house and waited for Mike to show up.

In no time, Mike walked up to the brook and the two of them just started talking like friends do.

The two were walking along the muddy edge of the river. The sound of the flowing water was easing and seemed to take away any stress that the body had.

"So, Ross, what do you think of Sophomore year. Is it tough, or what?" Mike asked.

"Well, considering you've asked me this about fifty times since the school year began, I'll tell you, it's not hard. It's challenging."

Mike scoffed. "Easy for you to say. Let me guess, you made honor rolls for all three terms so far?"

"Yup," Ross said, looking at the muddy ground as the two of them continued walking along the side of the stream. Then, something caught Ross's breath.

"Hey, Ross, you okay?" Mike asked, stopping and looking at his friend. "What's wrong?"

"Mike, have you noticed that before?" Ross asked.

"Noticed what?"

"That."

Ross pointed to a mysterious cave that was sitting along the side of the stream. Although nothing was happening around or in it, there was something dark and brooding about it. The cave didn't look very big; it looked as if it were just barely big enough to fit both teenagers into it.

"Huh." Mike said casually. "I never noticed that cave before. Let's go look inside it!"

Mike started hurrying along the side of the stream and towards the cave.

"Wait, Mike, I don't think we should…" Ross started. But it was too late. Mike was gone and hurrying off towards the cave. Blowing a breath of air out from the bottom of his mouth and up into his short dark hair, Ross followed.

When both of them were at the entrance to the cave, they looked in. The inside looked dark and murky. Normally, it would be very dark, but based on the sun's location, there was plenty of light to see the inside of the cave. And the two of them could have sworn they saw drawings on the cave.

"Hey Ross, what do you think those drawings are?" Mike asked as he slowly went inside the cave.

"I have no idea," Ross admitted as he followed Mike into the brooding cave.

"Hey Ross, look!" Mike said. He pointed to a picture that looked like it had been drawn with a chalky material, but was obviously something stronger if it stood the test of time like that.

"What is _that?_" Ross asked.

The drawing appeared to be of a winged demon and it seemed to have a large circular center with several markings around the side of it. It also had a picture of three people who appeared to be fighting a man in robes. Another picture showed what looked like a feminine figure looking like she was about to do something drastic and a male figure looking upset-possibly crying about what the female figure was doing. It also showed what looked like a giant computer, only it looked like it was holding something far more complex than just data.

"I wonder what sick-minded kids drew these pictures," Mike said as he looked at the weird drawings on the cave's walls.

Ross was about to say something until he noticed something odd. He looked down at the ground and saw a white light shooting up from the floor. Where was the light coming from?

Ross bent down and looked at the light. His heavy-linked, silver-colored necklace dangled from his neck as he investigated the source of the light.

"Ross, what is it?" Mike asked.

"It looks like a light," Ross deducted, not knowing what else to say.

Ross reached out and touched the light. Instantly the entire cave lit up with the blinding light. The two teenagers had to shield their eyes from the bright light, and it only seemed to be getting brighter and brighter.

Finally, the light altogether disappeared, and Ross and Mike were now scared. It was obvious they were no longer in the cave. It was obvious they were no longer by the stream. It was obvious they were no longer home.


	2. A New Society

No reviews for the first chapter. I guess it's okay; I'm not expecting this story to be a huge hit anyway. (but that doesn't mean I don't want reviews-that was directed to those of you who have read the first chapter)

------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------- --------------------

The area around Ross and Mike was completely strange to them. Indeed, they were no longer home, around the things that they were used to being around. They were in a much more colonial setting.

The houses were made of weaker material that wouldn't hold up too well in a storm, (except for the wealthy people who could afford more sturdy material) the roads weren't made of tar or of gravel, but were rather just paths of dirt cleared out, and there was no sign of any sort of even the slightest advanced technology in sight.

"Normally, this is where I'd crack a 'Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore' joke," Mike started, "but this is kind of freaky."

"Yeah, it is," Ross agreed.

Both kids looked around, hoping to find someone who they thought could be of some help. But there didn't seem to be too many people around at all.

Right ahead of them was a long, empty pathway leading up to a great building. Just by looking at it, you could tell it was a temple. There was a staircase of stone leading up to a giant door, but the door was also made of stone. Heck, the entire temple itself seemed to be made of stone.

Standing right outside the temple by the stairs were two guards. One was male and had a very plain, round face and a thin structure. He had one bit of brown braided hair that went all the way down to almost the back of his knees.

Directly opposite of him on the stairs was a woman. Her blonde hair glowed in the sunlight, but she had a very serious look about her.

Ross and Mike nervously started approaching the two guards to see if either of them could be of any help. But the second they got within only a few feet, both guards jumped in front of the two kids and yelled "halt!" loud enough to surprise them and make them jump slightly.

"Where are you going!" the male guard sternly asked.

"Uh…nowhere," Mike said nervously. "My friend and I…got lost, and we were seeing if any of you could help us out."

"No," said the female guard. "No one is allowed into or around the temple except for Master Maverick himself."

"Master Maverick?" Mike asked.

"Sandra. Kline. What are you doing?" came a booming voice from behind the two guards.

Sandra and Kline, the two guards standing at the stairway to the temple, turned around. Standing there was a tall man and a bit overweight. He was wearing a long, dark gray cloak that covered every part of his body except for his head. He had a round face and thinning gray hair.

"Master Maverick!" both guards yelled loudly as they got on one knee.

"What are you two doing?" Maverick asked.

"These two children tried to trespass into your temple," Sandra accused.

"What are you talking about?" Mike said loudly. "No, we weren't!"

"Sandra, Kline. I want you to leave these two boys alone. Allow them to come up here," Maverick softly, but sternly commanded.

"Yes, Master Maverick," Kline said. He and Sandra stepped far to the side, allowing Ross and Mike to freely walk up the stairs and into the temple with Maverick.

The two boys walked up the stairs and Maverick seemed to be waiting for them with a pleasant smile on his face. As soon as they were up there, he turned his back and started leading them inside.

"So, what may I ask brings you two here?" Maverick asked.

Ross and Mike cast each other a quick look and non-verbally debated on whether or not they should tell Maverick about how they really got there, or if they should make up a story. Would the guy really believe them if they told him they got warped there through a mysterious light in a cave hundreds, possibly thousands of years in the future?

"We, uh…just got lost," Ross finally said.

"I see," Maverick said. "Where did you come from?"

Ross let out a nervous laugh. "Uh…somewhere far away. We don't know how to get back."

"I see," Maverick said, still keeping his eyes ahead of him and not turning back to stare at the two teenagers. "And what might your names be?"

"My name is Ross Hamilton," Ross said. (Yes, I am aware he had a different last name in the first chapter. Don't worry; I know what I'm doing. And no, he isn't lying)

"And my name's Mike," Mike said excitedly.

"Ross and Mike," Maverick said softly with a voice full of awe. "I see."

"So, uh…what religion is this temple for?" Ross asked, trying to get to know the place they were in the best. Unlike Mike, Ross paid attention in history class, so if he knew what religion this temple was celebrating, then perhaps he could figure out where they were or what time period they were in.

"It's not for a religion," Maverick said, the tone in his voice becoming more and more serious. "This is a temple to idolize a being that is said to have the power to distort and control time."

"Really?" Mike asked. "What religion is that?"

"I believe I just said it's not a religion," Maverick said. "While we generally accept religious and creation beliefs, this temple here is for the being we call the Finis Tempi."

"The Finis Tempi?" Ross asked.

"That's right," Maverick said.

The halls on the inside of the temple were dark and were made of stone. There was only dirt for a floor and there didn't seem to be anything other than candles and torches to light the way inside. Ross and Mike couldn't figure out what was so important in here that the guards wouldn't let them come in without Maverick's approval.

Then, Ross noticed something very interesting. Something was dangling from the outside of Maverick's robe and around his neck. It appeared to be some sort of chain with a blue pendent in the middle. It looked exactly like the necklace Ross somehow was wearing earlier that day.

Temporarily losing his breath, Ross looked beneath his shirt to see if the necklace he woke up wearing was still there. Somehow, it wasn't. It was gone and somehow found its way on Maverick.

"Weird…" Ross muttered to himself.

"So, Mike and Ross," Maverick said, "you say you are lost and have nowhere to stay?"

"Yes, sir," Ross said, trying to be as polite as possible.

"Well then, look at some of the houses around here until you find one that you think you want to spend a few nights in. When you have selected, knock on the door and ask the owner to let you stay there for a few days. And if they refuse, tell them that Maverick is requiring it," Maverick explained.

"How do we know they'll believe us?" Mike asked.

"No one around here would say something like that and not be serious," Maverick said. "Understand?"

"Yeah," Ross said. "Thanks a lot."

Ross and Mike walked out of the temple and neither of them said a word until Maverick was for sure out of earshot. Mike was the first one to speak.

"Hey Ross, that thing that guy was wearing around his neck…wasn't that?..."

"Yeah, Mike. It was. That was the one I was wearing earlier today."

When the two of them were out of the temple, they walked passed Sandra and Kline again, but neither one of them said anything to the two kids as they walked out. In fact, they almost seemed embarrassed about how they had treated them before Maverick told them to let them in.

When Ross and Mike were walking through the small village, they made quick glances at all the houses they could find and debated which one they thought they'd be able to enjoy the most.

But just looking around convinced Ross and Mike that the task would not be so easy. Most of the people around looked like they belonged in the early eighteenth century of the late seventeenth.

"I don't think any of these people would want to take us in for a few nights," Mike said. "I mean, just look at these people. They're churning butter _themselves!_"

"Just chill out, all right?" Ross asked. "We need to find somewhere to stay. With any luck, we can find someone who'll be happy to take us in."

"Maybe we could even find someone who we could tell about how we really got here," Mike said in an upbeat way.

"I don't know," Ross said in an unsure voice. "We're going to have to find our way out of here and how to get back to our real time period while trying to cast as little suspicion on ourselves as possible."

"How are we going to do that?"

"How should I know!"

Now the two knew their true objective. They weren't here to figure out how they got there or what time period they were in; their mission was to find a way _back_.

As Ross and Mike continued walking, they saw someone standing outside who appeared to be doing some work. Ross and Mike couldn't see him up close at first, but he appeared to be very friendly looking.

"Why don't we ask that guy?" Ross suggested.

"I don't care," Mike casually said.

Ross and Mike followed the man and saw the house he walked in. Ross nervously went up to the door and knocked on it.

The man who greeted them was the one they had seen a little before. His hair was indeed dark, but he had an Asian look to him. Dark hair, dark eyes and tanned skin, but he looked like a very thoughtful and generous person.

"Uh…hi," Ross nervously said.

"Eh…can I do something for you?" the man asked with a confused look.

"Yeah. You see, my friend and I kinda got lost and we were wondering if you wouldn't mind letting us stay at your place for a few nights. I mean, until we figure out where we're supposed to be," Ross tried to say as confidently as possible.

The man smiled, revealing two rows of nearly perfect white teeth. "I'd be glad to have you live with me for a few days. Come on in," he said in a very friendly and welcoming voice.

Ross and Mike quickly smiled at each and then walked in. The house was pretty small, but it seemed to be comfortable enough and it looked like it wouldn't be too bad living there for a little while.

"So, what are your names?" the man asked, still smiling at his two new, yet unexpected, guests.

"I'm Ross," Ross said politely. He stuck out his thumb and pointed it to Mike. "And that's Mike."

"Ross. Mike. Pleased to meet you," the man said. "You can call me Bien."

"Hi Bien," Ross said with a wide smile on his face.

"Thanks for taking us in," Mike said, sounding a little exhausted after what they had just been through.

"Don't mention it," Bien said. "I'm always ready to help out someone in a time of need."

"Thanks," Ross said again, not knowing what else to say.

"So, where are you guys from?" Bien asked as he sat down in a wooden chair at a table.

Ross and Mike gave each other nervous looks. "We…got lost," Ross said, trying to avoid the question as best as he could.

"Yeah, we come from somewhere pretty far away," Mike said.

"Where?"

"New England," Ross said, trying his best to come up with the best answer that would make sense.

Bien started laughing. "Well, I figured as much. You're in New England now."

That was a bit of relief to Ross and Mike. At least they knew where they were now, but they still had a lot of questions lingering in their mind.

"Uh, we both have short memory," Mike spoke up. "What year is it?"

Bien looked a little confused. "It's 1729," he said a little suspiciously.

Ross and Mike had horrified looks on their faces and turned towards each other. Could they have really been warped back that far?"

"Mike, that's practically 250 years in the past," Ross whispered in a nervous voice.

"I know. What are we going to do?"

"Is there a problem, guys?" Bien asked, not hearing what Ross and Mike were whispering to each other.

"No, we're fine," Ross lied.

"You sure? You guys seem concerned about something."

"No, we're fine," Mike said. "Ross and I really appreciate you letting us stay here, by the way. We'll only be here for a few days anyway before we're back out there on our own."

Bien looked very concerned. "Are you sure?" he asked. "It's dangerous out there."

Mike scoffed. "Whatever. Ross and I have taken on a ton of enemies before. We can handle whatever is thrown at us."

"Really," Bien said in a sneaking way with a mischievous smile beginning to spread across his face. He got up and he went over to a wall. He pulled a sword off the wall that was hanging on it and pointed it at Ross and Mike. "Wanna see how strong you really are?"


	3. Return to the Temple

Ross was startled by this and took a giant step back. "W…what?" he asked in disbelief as he saw Bien's sword pointing right at him. The narrow blade seemed to glare at him as he made direct eye contact with it.

"You think you can handle whatever comes your way?" Bien repeated, basically challenging what Mike just said. "Then let's see it."

Bien ran over to another sword on the wall and threw it at Ross, who caught it without too much trouble. He got a pretty good grip on the sword and noted that it actually seemed very light. It was very maneuverable and it almost seemed weightless.

"Ross, you want to go first?" Bien asked, getting his sword in position.

Ross looked at the sword. The blade to it was very thin, and yet it had a very thick cross section. Most of the blade looked like it would snap easily if it was smashed against anything solid, except for one part that was located near the tip of it.

"What is this?" Ross asked, still feeling very awkward about everything going on.

"It's a rapier," Bien said, getting in a fighting stance. "It's been in my family for generations now. Well, come on; let's see what you've got."

Ross nervously put up the blade in a fencing position. He started slowly taking a few steps towards Bien and pushing the blade a little closer to him, but just by looking at him, you could tell that he was nervous. (when it came to hiding thoughts and feelings, Ross never really was too good)

Ross tried taking the first swing. It was very awkward, and he tried lunging for Bien with it.

Bien countered by taking his rapier and viciously slashing back and knocking Ross's onto the ground, leaving him completely defenseless.

Ross looked at Bien with fear burning in his eyes. He slowly started walking towards his sword as it lay on the ground but never once took his eyes off his opponent.

Bien continued approaching Ross with the rapier and ready to strike, but Ross made one quick dive and lunged for the rapier on the wooden ground. He did a quick role and picked it up and was back on his two feet and in the match.

Bien didn't seem too nervous of this, though. He ran over to Ross and faked a jab in the gut with his rapier, and when Ross was still recovering, Bien dropped on the floor and swung his legs around, tripping Ross.

Ross fell backwards on the floor with a hard thud. Bien was soon back on his feet and pointed his rapier at Ross's throat.

"Hmmm," Bien said with a smile. "One thing you should know about rapier fights: they're not all about sword-to-sword combat."

Ross moaned as Bien pulled the blade away from Ross's throat.

"I find it hard to believe you guys think you can take on anything when you can't even take me on in a fencing match with a rapier," Bien said.

"Yeah?" Mike said as he got up and picked up Ross's rapier. "Well, why don't you try fighting _me_? I'm a lot faster and have more agility than Ross does."

"Mike, there's more to a rapier fight than being fast," Bien said. "It's about being precise and being aggressive, but maintaining caution at the same time."

Mike looked a little confused. "I knew that," he said in an unconvincing tone. "Come on, let's get this fight going."

The fight started. This time, between Bien and Mike. Bien took the same approach and tried taking a few practice swings at Mike before Mike finally got nervous and tried hacking down on Bien like he was swinging an axe.

Bien simply grabbed the blade of the rapier and put the point of his own right into Mike's stomach. (But he didn't push it in. It was just supposed to be a friendly fight, after all)

"Mike, didn't you know rapiers aren't meant to be giant, powerful swords?" Bien asked with a pleased and somewhat cocky smile on his face.

"H…how did you do that?" Mike asked as he saw Bien was holding the rapier blade and didn't seem to be suffering any pain at all from it.

"Mike, it's not that hard to grab a rapier blade with your bare hand without getting hurt," Bien explained, still smiling pleasantly.

Mike just let go of his sword, meaning Bien won. He didn't last nearly as long as Ross did, nor did he even come close to putting up as much of a fight.

"Well, what did you expect?" Mike said, not grappling well with the fact that he lost. He wasn't used to losing, so he didn't handle it very well when he did. "We haven't been handling rapiers like you've been. And I suppose you've never lost a fight in your life?"

"Well, it depends what you mean by 'lost'," Bien said half cryptically. "Years ago, I was in a fencing match with one of my friends, and he accidentally got me in the eye."

Bien pointed to his right eye and now that Ross and Mike looked at it, they could tell that there was an injury there.

"Ouch," Ross said. "What happened?"

"I got blinded," Bien said. "It's very difficult for me to read now."

"Sorry to hear that," Ross said.

"Thank you," Bien said, appreciating the care his two new friends were giving to him. "But I'll manage somehow. Life is full of tragedy, and I've known that for a while. It doesn't make it any easier having to live with it, but I'm used to it."

Ross and Mike could tell Bien had probably had a few rather unfortunate moments in the past, but they figured he didn't want to talk about it too much, so they just dropped it then.

"Hey, what say I teach you guys a few special moves and techniques I learned when I was training with a rapier?"

Ross and Mike both looked pretty nervous. Neither of them were really in the mood for a self-defense lesson, but Bien had been so good to them that they really thought they had little choice.

So Bien proceeded to teach Ross and Mike several moves, with and without rapiers. He taught them some special moves on how to trip opponents in the heat of battle, how to counter some of their attacks and several other things that would quickly turn the tide of battle.

Ross and Mike, however, were very skeptical that they would ever need to know any of those moves or that they would ever get into a fight that required them. Their adventuring days were pretty much over, it seemed. (that is, until now)

The rest of the day wore on very uneventfully. In a short while, it was time for all of them to go to sleep for the night.

Ross and Mike slept on mats on the floor, which was the best they had. Bien offered them his bed to sleep in and he would sleep on the floor instead, but neither of them felt right about doing that. They said they wouldn't mind sleeping on the floor, and truthfully, they didn't.

The morning soon came, and Ross and Mike were the first ones up. They saw it was still pretty dark out, but the sun was beginning to rise and was making some of the clouds sport a shade of lavender. The ground and everything in front of them was becoming more and more visible.

Ross woke up and he looked to the side. He saw Mike was staring up the ceiling and didn't seem to be making any effort to try and go back to sleep.

"Mike, what is it?" Ross asked. "How come you're not trying to get some shut-eye?"

"I can't sleep," Mike said, softly shaking his head but still looking up at the ceiling. "I'm starving."

"Me, too," Ross said sorrowfully. It was true that neither of them had eaten a thing since before they mysteriously went through the portal in that cave and wound up back about 250 years in the past."

"Maybe we should ask Bien to make something for us," Mike suggested, turning his head to his best friend for the first time during the conversation.

"We can't do that," Ross said. "Why don't we go try to find something to eat on our own? I'm sure there's some place around here that will give us some grub."

Without waking Bien, Ross and Mike quietly made their way out of his house. They saw the morning dew glistening on the dark green, flourishing grass on the side.

Ross and Mike also looked to the side and saw that Kline and Sandra were still standing outside the temple and at attention, just like they were when Ross and Mike last saw them the night before.

"Sheesh, you think Maverick makes them guard that temple 24/7?" Mike asked.

"I dunno," Ross said. "Anyway, we're out here to find something to eat now."

"Ross! Mike!" called a voice coming from the direction of the Temple of the Finis Tempi. Both kids turned around and saw Kline yelling at them.

The two boys started running quickly over to the two temple guards, curious about what it was they wanted.

"Ross, Mike," Sandra said, "Maverick said he wanted me to bring you two here the next time he saw you. He says there was a room in the temple that he forgot to show you yesterday."

"Oh," Ross said. "Well, it's not really a big deal. We don't care, right Mike?"

"Please, Maverick insists upon it," Sandra said. "And that's the one room you're sure to want to see."

"Really?" Mike asked. "Where is Maverick now?"

"He's already inside. He gave us permission to let you enter," Kline explained.

"Uh…thanks," Ross said, unsure what to say. He and Mike both started running up the stone stairs to the temple and went inside.

The mazelike structure of the temple soon turned out to be very confusing for the two teenagers. They looked around for a very long time before they stumbled across a giant door that had Maverick's name on it.

"Maverick!" Ross called as he started banging on the loud door.

The door suddenly opened and Maverick walked out. The first thing Ross saw was the necklace that he wore. That heavy linked necklace with the circular blue pendent in it. Ross knew there was something about hat necklace other than that he was wearing it yesterday morning when he woke up, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

"Hello, Ross and Mike," Maverick said friendly. "Have you come to see what I forgot to show you yesterday?"

"Yeah," Ross said. "Sandra and Kline said that you wanted to show us something pretty interesting."

"And indeed I do," Maverick said. "Please, this way."

Maverick started leading Ross and Mike through the long hallways of the temple before he stopped at what appeared to be a giant pedestal in the middle of a wide open room.

"This is where the Finis Tempi's power can be harnessed," Maverick said. "Right here on this pedestal."

"Uh…what does it do?" Mike asked.

"The power of the Finis Tempi can send you back in time," Maverick said. "I thought you might be interested in reliving your childhoods again."

Ross looked pretty excited, as did Mike. "You mean we can time-travel here?" Mike said. "All right, sounds cool!"

"Splendid," Maverick said. "You may do whatever you please once you go back in time. There's only one rule: don't do something that would otherwise change the course of history in any way."

"Yeah, yeah," Mike said. "I've seen movies with that plot before. Don't worry, Ross and I won't do anything to mess up anything from the past."

"Splendid," Maverick said.

As Maverick said that, a wind started blowing through his robes and the blue pendent on his necklace started glowing.

The pedestal Ross and Mike were on started glowing. In a matter of seconds, a bright light shot up and engulfed them, and in just a few seconds, they were gone.

When the light cleared, Ross and Mike were no longer in the place that they were before. There were long fields of crops all around them, and the air seemed very hot. A soft wind blew through the rows of crops they were in.

"Wha?" Mike asked. "Where the heck is this?"

Ross, on the other hand, looked very shocked and like a million things were going through his mind at that one moment. "This…is this really?..." he stammered.


	4. Back to the Past

"…no way," Ross said in complete disbelief as he saw everything around him.

Mike couldn't really see what it was that Ross was so amazed about. Around both of them was nothing except one giant, open field. The air was really hot, and the grass was so dry it was turning to a shade of yellow. The sky was practically cloudless, and there were barely any houses around.

"Ross, what is it?" Mike asked.

"This can't be…is this?...is this my home? In Kansas?" Ross said breathlessly. It was obvious the memories were starting to come back to him.

"Kansas?" Mike asked. "Since when have you lived in Kansas?"

"I only told you the first week we met," Ross snidely replied as he put his hands on his hips and took in everything around him. "You don't remember?"

"Ross, I was, what, eleven?" Mike asked. "And I'm fifteen now. Of course I don't remember."

"Whatever," Ross said, not really caring. "This is just so awesome! I'm finally getting to see my childhood again. Mike, I think we really _are_ back in time!"

A huge grin started spreading across Ross's face as he started running around, looking for whatever he could find. He was anxious about finally stepping into his past and reliving things that were long forgotten. Then when he ran past a certain point, Ross gasped. He was staring at what was in front of him in complete awe, and it suddenly looked like he had turned into a statue because of how still he was standing.

"Ross, what is it?" Mike asked as he kept running after Ross, who was sprinting through the wide open fields after his friend.

"Mike, look!" Ross yelled excitedly. He pointed to a group of kids playing in front of them.

There were three kids there: one was a girl with red hair, another was a boy with blonde hair, and the third was also a boy with black hair. All of them were running around (probably playing tag) and laughing and having fun. Ross was staring in complete disbelief.

"Hey Ross, the kid with the black hair looks like you, except a lot younger," Mike input when he finally saw what Ross was staring at.

"Mike, I think that _is_ me!" Ross said with excitement and emotion.

But it was short lived. The scene that was playing in front of Ross and Mike faded away, but was instantly replaced with another one. Ross soon found himself inside his old home in Kansas, and it appeared to be early in the morning.

"Wow," Ross said breathlessly. He took in everything around him in his old house: the wooden floors, the lack of anything electronic, the old-style appliances and the lack of just about anything spacious or luxurious. The memories were flooding back.

"Wow, Ross," Mike said. "I guess you were like a peasant out here."

Ross gave a slight, yet forced laugh. "Yeah, life was never easy."

After saying this, Ross saw what appeared to be his eight-year old self running towards the house. Mike saw Ross's eight-year old counterpart, and he was very surprised (to put it lightly) at the speed at which Ross was running. For an eight-year old, Ross was going incredibly fast.

"Ross, you were like a speed-demon when you were eight years old!" Mike exclaimed.

Ross lightly chuckled. "I suppose you forgot that as well? The first time I was over your house, I told you I had to run home from my bus stop if I wanted to make it home before it got too late."

The image in front of them faded once again, and it showed Ross and all of his friends swimming in a stream a distance away from the house. Ross explained to Mike that was what he and his friends had to do in the summer to stay cool from the hot sun.

Then, a part of Ross's past popped up that made Ross suddenly look like a stake was stuck right through him. He was soon staring at a part of his past where he was talking to a girl who looked rather pretty for her age (roughly five or six years old). Mike noticed Ross was tightening up and asked what was wrong.

"Mike, that's Beth," Ross explained, barely able to watch what was happening in front of him.

"Beth?" Mike asked. "Who's that?"

"She and I were really close," Ross explained. "But then, one day…"

Ross trailed off when he saw the events of the past playing out in front of him. Ross and Mike saw Ross's six-year old self standing right in front of a large truck.

Inside the truck was Beth, and she was looking out the window and giving six-year old Ross a very sad look. Six-year old Ross was giving her an equally sad look, and they never once took their eyes off each other. Even though both kids had barely started elementary school, it was easy to see the sad feelings and distress growing within them.

"Ross, what happened?" Mike asked.

"Beth moved away when we were both really young," Ross explained. "I haven't seen or even talked to her since."

"Wow," Mike said. "Well, at least you got Alicia now, right?"

"Yeah, I'm moving on," Ross confidently said.

Mike had no idea that Ross had strong feelings at such a young age. Despite everything the two friends had talked about, that was something Ross neglected to tell him. It almost gave Mike an entirely new outlook on his friend.

Suddenly, everything around them got very hazy. The wide open fields of Ross's old home in Kansas started to disappear.

"What's going on?" Ross asked.

"I don't know," Mike said. "You think Maverick's kept us here long enough?"

When the haze suddenly cleared, it was obvious that they were no longer in Ross's old home and were now somewhere completely different.

"Whoa," Mike said breathlessly when he saw what was going on.

Ross and Mike saw an image of a boy who looked like he was about nine years old and had long, thick dirty-blonde hair that almost went down past his face. He was sitting in a living room and watching a television from the mid-sixties. The show he was watching had been cancelled for years.

"Whoa!" Mike yelled. "That's me, and I'm watching my favorite television show ever!"

"What show is it?" Ross asked.

"It's _The Adventures of Carl the Cat_!" Mike said excitedly.

"Carl the Cat?" Ross asked to himself as he put his forefinger on his chin and started talking. "I heard about that show. Didn't it get taken off the air a while ago?"

"Yeah," Mike said. "But Ross, don't you see? This is _my_ past! Wow, I remember coming home and watching this show every single day."

"What else did you do other than watch this?" Ross asked.

"Uh…actually, not much else," Mike admitted.

"Heh. So you pretty much spent your entire early days of childhood watching this TV show and just hanging out?" Ross asked.

"Ummmm…yeah, that's about right," Mike said in a carefree way.

"Gee, sounds like you had a tough life growing up," Ross said sarcastically as he crossed his arms.

The scene suddenly shifted from Mike's living room to seeing him playing outside. Right now, Mike looked like he was about ten years old. He was outside and looked like he was just relaxing and enjoying the outdoors world.

Mike looked a little nervous, and he suddenly acted like he knew something bad was going to happen.

"Mike, what is it?" Ross asked.

Mike just watched as the past kept playing out in front of them. At one point, Mike's ten-year old self smashed the side of his arm all of a sudden. It was done quickly enough that it almost made Ross jump.

"Mike, why'd you hit your arm?"

"I got bit by a mosquito," Mike answered, still looking at himself from five years before.

"So…what's the big deal?" Ross asked.

"Well, as it turns out, that was a disease carrying mosquito. And when it bit me, I got really sick," Mike said in almost too casual voice.

Ross gasped and was surprised to hear that Mike had a near death experience. When he looked back at the past as it was passing by in front of them, he saw that they were no longer standing outside, but now in an emergency room.

In the emergency room, Mike was lying on a bed practically unconscious, and he looked completely anorexic. His skin was pale and he was only making low moaning sounds. Meanwhile, his friends and family were standing right beside him. Some were struggling to fight back tears while others were just letting them go. Either way, there were several people that were worried about Mike.

"Good thing I wasn't awake to see all this," Mike remarked. "Being fatally ill was bad enough, but having a bunch of relatives leaning over me and doing all that stuff…ugh."

"Mike, how come you never told me that you got bitten by mosquito and contracted a disease that almost killed you?" Ross asked loudly.

"What's the big deal?" Mike asked. "The important thing is that I lived. Since then I've been trying to appreciate life more and more and not get so worked up about everything."

"Is that why you're so carefree about everything today?"

"Yup."

Ross would have never guessed that the entire reason Mike was basically a slacker was because he had a near death encounter over a year before they had even met.

"Heh," Ross snickered after seeing the most dramatic experience in Mike's life. "Well, you learn something new every day, I guess."


	5. Breaking the Rules

The vision of the hospital in front of Ross and Mike slowly started vanishing. The two teenagers watched as everything around them slowly started disappearing, but it seemed to be fading into something else.

By the time everything was clear once again, the two of them saw that they were now in a completely different location. They didn't even know if they were still in Mike's past.

"Where are we?" Mike asked.

"Looks like some sort of forest," Ross replied.

The area around them was very dark and the air was very still. It was obvious there were outside, mainly due to the soft sound of dirt being crunched as they walked. And although it was pretty dark, it looked like there were a lot of trees around them.

"Hey Mike, what's that light?" Ross asked.

Ross pointed out to a small red glow emitting itself from several yards away. Quickly, Ross and Mike started running through the thick trees and pushing bushes out of their way as they tried to find out what the red light was.

When they were only a few feet away, they saw a group of smaller kids sitting around a small fire. They were all laughing and smiling and were holding small twigs, all of them with marshmallows on the end.

One of the kids was a girl with a face full of freckles and brown hair. There was a boy with long, curly red hair, and sitting next to him was another boy with dirty blonde hair that covered almost everything down to his eyeballs.

"Hey, Ross," Mike said, "we're still in my past. That kid right there with the dirty blonde hair is me."

"Really?" Ross asked.

"Yeah. I remember now," Mike said. "This is a camping trip I went on the summer before I met you."

"Cool," Ross said, looking around and studying everything about the area. When doing this, he saw a pile of carefully carved wood shaped into perfect cylinders. They looked pretty light and maneuverable.

"Hey Mike, what are those long rod things for?" Ross asked, pointing to them.

"Hmmm," Mike said, recalling seeing the sticks there. "You know, I really don't remember."

There was something really troubling about those rods of sticks that Ross couldn't quite place his finger on. When it came down to it, who would put a random pile of sticks there? Ross was sure it wasn't a big deal, but the question was bothering him. The sticks looked like they were serving a much bigger purpose than what just sitting there. If Mike and his camping group didn't put them there, then who did?

Mike started slowly walking over to the large pile of sticks. "Ross, I think it's time I play one-on-one with my past, what do you think?"

"What do you mean?" Ross asked.

Mike picked up one of the large sticks from the top layer of the pile and started walking around to his younger self.

"Wait, Mike, I wouldn't touch those if I were you," Ross cautioned as he reached out to Mike (for some reason).

"Pfft," Mike said as he spit air through his lips. "What's the big deal? It's only a stick, you know."

Saying this, Mike tapped his younger self on the shoulder, instantly grabbing his attention.

"Hey, wanna play some stick ball?" Mike asked with a smile on his face.

"Hey Mike, he looks just like an older you!" the girl with freckles pointed out to the younger Mike.

"Yeah!" the boy with curly red hair said. "He looks like he's twelve and not ten!"

Ross laughed to himself as the memories of how naïve as he was then came flooding back to him, but he was still concerned about what Mike was doing.

"Come on," Mike said as he pulled his younger self up from sitting on the ground. He walked over and picked up a fairly large rock. "Let's see how well you can hit."

Ross soon realized what Mike was going to do was just play the kiddie version of baseball with a stick for a bat and a rock for the ball. And he was going to use one of those strange and mysterious sticks lying around as the bat.

"Oh, one-on-one with your past…I get it," Ross said. "All right, Mike, put the stick down. Someone's going to get hurt."

"Ross, relax," Mike said in his normal carefree voice. "I never got hit on the head when I was ten."

Ross was upset that Mike didn't heed his warning, and soon, Mike was going to wish that he did.

Ross sat down and watched as Mike handed the perfectly cylinder-shaped stick to his ten-year old counterpart. Mike stepped back several feet and held a somewhat large rock in his hand. After taking about eight steps away from his younger self, he threw the rock underhand.

Mike of ten years swung the stick, but he swung it too hard (being the reckless kid he was back then) and let the stick go flying out of his hand.

Ross watched as he saw the stick fly right past him and crash into a tree. Upon hitting the tree, the stick was totally destroyed. The tip was smashed into several smaller pieces while most of the lower part of the stick remained in tact.

"Nice swinging," Mike commented to his younger self. "Come on, if you want to swing like the great Yaz, you need to at least hold onto the bat."

But when the younger Mike was about to say something, a giant flash appeared in front of everyone. A small portal of white popped up out of nowhere, and Maverick walked out of it. Accompanying him were Kline and Sandra.

The younger kids around the campfire got scared of the three adults appearing out of a random portal and ran into the woods, screaming. However, Ross and Mike stayed and confronted Maverick and his two bodyguards.

"Hey Maverick," Mike said with a smile on his face. "How's it going?"

"I thought I made it very clear not to interfere with the past in anyway!" Maverick snapped, looking very upset.

"I told you not to touch those sticks," Ross said.

"Wait a minute!" Mike yelled. "You're getting mad at me just because I broke one of those sticks? What's the big deal?"

"Maverick told you not to do anything that would change the past!" Klein screamed.

"And you completely disobeyed him," Sandra said, finishing Klein's thought.

"Come on, they're just sticks!" Mike continued insisting.

"That's simply not true," Maverick said. "Those sticks were part of the past, and you destroyed one of them. For interfering with the past, you must be punished."

"_Punished_?" Mike yelled. "For what, my younger self breaking a stick?"

"I'll see to it that you will never have the opportunity to do this. The only way I can guarantee neither of you change history like you have is to destroy you as children. Kline! Sandra! Take care of these two."

"Yes, Maverick," the two bodyguards said in unison.

Maverick formed another white portal and disappeared though it. He disappeared as soon he went inside, leaving Ross and Mike to deal with his two bodyguards.

Without Klein or Sandra even doing anything, two more white portals were formed besides each of them.

"I hope you enjoyed being teenagers, you two," Klein threatened. "Because it doesn't look like you're ever going to see that time."

Thinking fast and through his panic, Ross picked up a giant stick and threw it at Mike. "Mike, catch!"

Mike caught the large stick in his hand. "Wait, Ross, what for?"

"Fighting!" Ross yelled. "Remember those moves Bien taught us?"

"Oh, yeah…" Mike said.

Klein jumped over to Mike and pulled him into the white portal closer to him. The portal disappeared as soon as the two were in there. That just left Ross standing, ready to confront Sandra.

"Farewell," Sandra said.

Ross picked up one of the giant sticks from the pile and got ready to fight with it. But just as he was ready to start fighting her, Sandra pulled Ross through the white portal.

Just because a stick was broken, Maverick now wanted Ross and Mike to be killed as younger kids, just so they couldn't live to be old enough to interfere with the past. But Maverick considered "breaking a stick" interfering with the past.

Why was Maverick so angry just because a stick was broken? What was the reason Ross and Mike had to be killed as little kids just because they went to the past and broke a stick?

The answers to these questions would soon lead Ross and Mike on another adventure that was unlike any they had either been on before. And what would erupt would be beyond anything that either of them could have imagined.


	6. Fight in Mike's Past

Well, thank you Emron wolfmanfreak for that very "kind" review. Let me tell you I've never watched an episode of InuYasha in my entire life. In fact, I didn't even know it had a series outside of video games, and the only reason I know those exist is because I've watched X-Play before. I assure you any similarities to anything in this story are completely coincidental, because all of it has come from my head. (by the way, I'm sure you don't mind that I've deleted your fairly accusing and completely pointless "review" )

------------------------------------------------ ----------------------- ------------------ ------------

There was a bright flash and Mike soon found himself without Ross. He was now back inside the hospital where he was being treated for his almost fatal mosquito bite, and he had the wooden rod that Ross handed to him as his only defense.

Kline was standing right across the room from this and held his fists up in the air. He was ready to battle Mike, and he clearly didn't look too concerned. One of the things Mike noticed is that the bracers Kline was wearing on his wrist seemed to be glowing a little bit. A light blue shade came out the parts on top of the wrist.

"Come on, Bien," Mike said, "I hope you can pull through for me here."

Taking the giant stick, Mike started trying to swing it around using the same techniques that Bien had taught him involving a rapier. The only drawback to it was that the rapier was much lighter, more maneuverable, the blade was a lot shorter and had sharper parts to it, and it was much more painful if hit.

Kline pushed both of his gauntlets in front of Mike and they started glowing once again. Instantly, a blue blast of some mysterious power erupted from them and started firing right at Mike.

Mike ducked out of the way and the blue blasts just barley missed his head. They instead hit the wall right behind him, leaving a giant whole in the spot where the blast hit.

"Whoa," Mike said. "That seems kinda dangerous."

Kline immediately jumped right in front of him and started trying to grab Mike by the throat and either choke him to death or to snap his neck. Either way, Mike had to find some way to stop it.

Mike pushed the stick in front of himself and in front of Kline, hoping it would obstruct his path. And it worked, because Kline couldn't get his attacks in with Mike continuously pushing the large wooden rod in front of him.

Finally, Kline instead jumped back and went over to the stand next to Mike's hospital bed. He started picking up anything fragile and began chucking them at Mike as hard as he possibly could.

Mike once again found himself ducking out of the way of every object Kline was throwing. It wasn't easy, and sometimes he had to stick the giant wooden rod he was holding in front of him so that he could get hit.

The sound of glass shattering and hitting the tile floor to the small, cramped hospital bedroom filled the air for a brief moment, but neither fighter could get too distracted by it.

Kline jumped in the air and on top of the bed, thinking it would give him more space to attack and be harder to hit. He once again started firing the blue rays from the heavy metal bracelets on him and tried to hit Mike once again.

This time, Mike found himself having to roll out of the way much quicker because he was at a steeper angle to be hit. He started jumping around the room very quickly, just barely being missed by all the blasts.

"All right, payback time!" Mike yelled when Kline had finished firing some of the energy from his bracers. He ran over to Kline very quickly and caused his plan of standing on the hospital bed to backfire.

Taking the giant wooden rod he held in his hand, Mike smashed the end right into Kline's crotch.

Kline started wincing up in pain and let out a loud yell, and Mike promptly took the stick again and hit him over the head with it. But Kline still had enough energy left in him. Taking his right hand, he grabbed the rod and started resisting.

Kline then took his free hand and snapped the end of the rod off, giving him a fair piece to fight with. But he actually looked pretty nervous when he broke the wooden rod.

"Maverick is going to be so displeased with me…" he said to himself before he got his focus back on started fighting Mike again.

Now that the stick was shorter, lighter and had a more sharp end, Mike could control it a bit easier, but nothing like the rapier techniques that Bien had taught them. At least he had more control this time.

But Kline seemed particularly deadly, even if he only had a small bit of wood to defend himself. He was treating it like it was a dagger, and he used it to the extent where Mike was actually pretty scared of him.

Mike slowly started backing up. A violent and hateful smile started spreading across Kline's middle aged face, and his sneer only intimidated Mike all the more.

"You're finished, kid!" Kline yelled.

In one last effort, Mike put the sharp end out and tried to stab Kline in the stomach with it, hoping for the best. The stabbing motion seemed to work, surprisingly, and Kline was sent back, now clutching his abdomen in pain.

After Mike had delivered that blow to Kline, he was now obviously the one with the advantage. Taking the large wooden stick one more time, Mike slammed the blunt end down on Kline and knocked him out cold.

Kline fell to the ground after receiving the blow to the skull and was knocked out cold. He didn't get up after being knocked down.

Mike was breathing heavily, but he didn't say a word. He just continued staring at Kline, and then at the broken piece of wood he was holding in his own hand.

"Wow, it's just a wooden rod," Mike said as he looked at it. "What's the big deal?...huh?"

Mike looked at the bracelets that Kline was wearing on his two hands. Both of them seemed to be glowing, and there was a strange sense about them. For some reason, Mike felt like he absolutely _had_ to get closer to them. He had to touch them.

Mike went over to the two bracelets and lifted them up. They suddenly started getting warmer and warmer in his hands, but for some reason, he didn't put them on.

"Weird," Mike said as he pocketed the two accessories. He then heard what sounded like two nurses walking over to the room to see how it was going. "Uh-oh."

Mike ran out of the room as quickly as possible and down the long, empty halls of the hospital. He ran around a corner and hid there. There were indeed two nurses heading towards the room, and Mike made it around the corner right before they would have caught him.

As he was breathing heavily and being thankful that he was still alive after the fight he got in with Kline just a moment ago, but then he felt something weird coming from the pocket he put the bracelets in.

Mike reached into his pocket and pulled the bracelets out. There seemed to be something weird about them. Maybe if he just put them on…

Mike slowly slipped both bracelets on his opposite hands. As soon as he did that, he felt a weird power rush through him. But even weirder, a giant white light started forming around him as he put the bracelets on.

"What the?..." Mike said.

But it was too late. The white light that formed when he put the bracelets on teleported him to some far other place.


	7. Home Again

Kline had been defeated and was now lying dead in a hospital room somewhere locked vast within Mike's past. But that was no longer the concern, for now, Ross had some problems of his own that he had to deal with.

After being forced through the portal Maverick created that led him to his past, Ross could once again clearly see what was in front of him.

Ross was staring at the wide open fields on his old home in Kansas. There was absolutely no signs of life anywhere in sight. But everything else remained the same. The dry, yellow glass went all the way up past his kneecaps, but he didn't feel the blades of grass rubbing up against him due to the fact he was wearing long pants.

The sky was a deep blue that it was almost enchanting. There was not a single cloud in the sky, and the sun was shining bright down.

Ross was confused with why nothing was happening. He started scratching his head in confusion, making his neat black hair look messier. His hazel green eyes scanned the empty fields in front of him.

Then, out of nowhere, a giant white portal appeared in front of him. It appeared so suddenly that it startled Ross and made the fifteen-year old jump with surprise.

The portal stuck out of the otherwise perfect looking scenery, almost like Ross was staring at a painting of the field he was standing in and the white portal was a patch of white canvas that the artist had neglected to finish painting.

Out of the portal came Sandra, giving Ross her most vengeful look yet. Her long blonde hair blew softly as she stepped out of the portal. It glistened in the sunlight, making it almost look beautiful. But her face was still pale and she still kept the serious expression about her that she possessed when she and Ross had first met. In her hand was a giant wooden staff. It was made of solid wood that was clearly varnished and polished, and it was clear it was used for beating. At the bottom of the handle was the same symbol that was on the necklace Maverick was wearing and the one Ross was mysteriously wearing when he had woken up a few mornings ago.

"Maverick has given me orders to dispatch you," Sandra threatened as she held up the rod and got ready to strike with it. "And I always follow through with my orders."

"I don't want to have to fight you," Ross said. His sweaty hand gripped the long, wooden stick that he had taken before he jumped into the portal.

"I wouldn't want to have to fight me either," Sandra said menacingly as a cocky smirk spread across her pale lips.

Without another word, Sandra leapt at Ross with the rod in her hand and tried bashing him over the side of the head with it.

Ross jumped out of the way just in time, but his landing wasn't so graceful. He landed hard on the ground and on top of his wooden stick, but he was back up again and wasn't fooling around anymore.

"Bien…" Ross mumbled to himself as he stared at Sandra with determination and the will to survive. "I hope your skills with the rapier can at least hold true for this piece of wood I got."

Ross then started charging Sandra and had his long wooden pole ready to attack. He gripped it with both of his hands, trying to get the maximum strength and control over it.

In just a matter of moments, Ross and Sandra were dueling with their two wooden weapons, and neither one of them showed any sign of weakening.

The sound of the wood banging against the other wooden weapon was heard and created loud cracking echoes that ripped through the normally quiet field that they were battling in.

Ross had spent the first ten and a half years of his life on this field, taking in its beauty and enjoying it. Never did he once think that it would be the stage for a battle for his life over five years down the road.

When it came to age, Sandra looked like she held _at least_ a ten year advantage over Ross, but it didn't mean Ross wasn't putting up a good fight against her. In fact, she seemed to have greatly underestimated the teenager.

After the two of them did nothing but bash their wooden weapons together as they hoped to strike a painful blow on the other, both of them were beginning to show visible signs of exhaustion.

Ross tried using a move Bien had taught him when they were fencing by trying to attack the legs, therefore crippling the opponent and being able to strike a fatal blow on them.

Ross tried this strategy by acting like he was running in a certain direction, therefore causing Sandra to look in the direction she thought he was running. But the instant Sandra turned away, Ross ducked and started hiding inside the tall grass. Despite the fact he was a little tall, he was still able to conceal himself perfectly within the yellow field.

Now, the fifteen year old was crawling through the grass and trying to move as slow as possible so Sandra would not be able to find him in the tall stretching fields. Ross had to move fast enough that he could find Sandra's legs and do something to cripple them.

Finally, after scurrying through the grass for a long time, Ross saw Sandra's legs as she trotted through the field slowly, looking for him. Ross dropped his stick to his side and with both of his hands, grabbed Sandra's ankle. He pulled her leg towards her, causing her to fall to the ground.

Unprepared, Sandra lost her balance as Ross pulled her leg towards him and fell to the ground. She landed on her back with a hard thud and probably fractured a few bones from the impact.

Ross took this opportunity to strike the winning blow. He got up from the grass and immediately located Sandra as she was lying on the ground in pain after just being pulled down. Ross picked up the long, wooden stick that he brought with him to fight and gripped it.

When Sandra had come to her senses, she looked up and saw Ross ready to deliver a blow to the side of her head with the wooden stick. She had no time to react.

Ross took the stick and slammed it right into her forehead. The blow was so solid it left a thin trail of blood trickling from the point of impact on Sandra's head. Her eyes were wide open, but showed no sign of life.

Breathing heavily, Ross stared at Sandra's lifeless body. He couldn't believe that he had just battled and won. The morality in him told him that he had done the wrong thing.

Ross dropped his stick and knelt down on the ground beside Sandra, the long grass almost going up to his chin. He never ceased staring at her.

"I'm a…murderer…"Ross said in disbelief. He was so furious with himself that the only way he won the battle was by taking a life.

"It's okay…" Ross tried telling himself. "It was out of self defense. _She_ was trying to kill _me_. I had every right defending myself. That was what had to be done."

As Ross continued trying to justify his actions in his mind, he noticed something glimmering on Sandra's wrists. Curious, he reached down and grabbed whatever was sparkling.

Ross was holding, in his hands, bracelets that looked exactly identical to the ones that Kline was wearing when Mike battled him in the hospital. Sandra had been wearing them when she was fighting, and it seemed to give her a bit of advantage. What was their real purpose?

Not knowing what else to do, or thinking he could possibly obtain a clue, Ross put the bracelets that Sandra was wearing on.

In a moment, the bright lights started swarming around Ross that had appeared around Mike after he had taken the bracelets Kline was wearing.

The bright lights enveloped Ross and started taking him away to some unknown place. When the lights cleared, he found himself in a place that he did not know.

The weather was surprisingly cold-much different than it was in Kansas. He was standing by some stream that had audible sounds of flowing, clear water. The grass was so much shorter, with blades barely half an inch high.

Ross could see his breath in front of him as he breathed, so the temperature must have been colder. It didn't take long to realize where he was.

"Ross!" called a familiar voice from behind him.

Ross got excited with hearing the cry of his name. He turned around, starting to smile, and standing several feet away from him was Mike. Mike looked pretty excited to see his friend. Moments later, he started running towards Ross.

"Mike, you're not gonna believe this," Ross started. "That Sandra woman just tried fighting me, and I was suddenly back in the fields outside my home in Kansas. I found enough nerve in me to fight her, and somehow I won."

"Really?" Mike asked. "That's weird. The portal _I_ went through took me back to the hospital room that I was being treated for my deadly mosquito illness in. Except I was fighting that Kline guy, and _I _won."

"You did?" Ross asked, his smile growing wider. "Awesome! We rule!"

The two friends gave each other a high five, but then a bigger question loomed over them.

"Wait," Ross suddenly said. "Then how did both of us get back here? Killing Kline and Sandra couldn't have had anything to do with it…"

"I don't know," Mike admitted. "_I_ got back by putting these on. I stole them from Kline after I fought him."

Mike put out his hands and showed Ross his wrists. Indeed, Mike was still wearing the two heavy, bright gold covered bracelets on his hands. The dark blue jewel in the center of both of them reflected the sunlight.

"Weird," Ross said softly. "Because after I beat Sandra, I put them on, and they took me back here."

"So…these things can take us through time?" Mike asked excitedly.

"I wouldn't be too sure of that," Ross said. "We're both wearing them now, and nothing is happening. And neither of us knew that these things would have some sort of time-traveling power, so we couldn't have done anything to trigger it."

"Maybe it just brought us back to where we belong?" Mike asked.

"There's got to be more to it than that," Ross said as he continued looking at the priceless and powerful metal on his hands. But after really analyzing what Mike said, Ross perked up.

"Wait-what do you mean 'where we belong'?"

"Well duh, Ross!" Mike said. "Don't you recognize this place. We're home. It's over."

"Home?" Ross asked. He had a feeling he was back and walking down the brook that he and Mike had been walking near before their entire journey started, but for some reason, he had trouble believing the last part.

"Yeah," Mike said. "Come on, we've beaten Maverick's two body guards. That should make him scared of us and leave us alone."

"Maverick…" Ross said. "You really think he's going to just forget about this?"

"Ross, he doesn't even know where we come from, and there's no time gate or anything around here that can take him back to us. You gotta stop worrying."

Ross sighed. "All right. Anyway, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty relieved that whole thing is over."

"Yeah."

And so the two went home, but not without forgetting the events that just happened to them. Both of them had been victorious in saving themselves in the past, which was the reason they still existed. And now that they were back to where they were before, it looked like things would be back to normal in no time.

Not quite.

A few days after Ross and Mike got back from the past, they were hanging out at Ross's house again. Ross was doing some of his homework while Mike was on Ross's computer, surfing the web.

It was an overcast day. There was practically no sunlight, making the March weather even colder than normal. The trees still had no leaves on them, but there wasn't much wind around. Both kids had grown used to the cold weather, so they weren't letting it bother them.

"Hey, Ross," Mike said as he typed on the computer, "can we do something?"

Ross let out an exasperated sigh. He dropped his pencil on top of his homework and plopped all his books on the floor. He had been through this routine before with Mike. Whenever Mike asked, "can we do something" meant that Mike was bored and he wanted Ross to come up with the idea of something fun to do to pass the time. And that often got on Ross's nerves.

"Um…let's see," Ross said, trying not to show how frustrated he was getting. He looked down at the dark blue carpet of his room. "We could play some video games, I guess."

"Nah," Mike said. "I'd rather do something active."

Ross sighed annoyed again, but tried not to let it get to him. "All right. Why don't we go outside, and we'll figure something out then?"

Mike just shrugged and got up from the computer chair. Both boys went outside. While it was still cold out, the two were perfectly fine wearing sweaters, jeans and sneakers. Without knowing where they were going, both of them started walking down the stream again as they pondered something to do.

Without warning, a loud cry came up out of nowhere and made both kids jump. "There you are!"

Ross and Mike turned around and saw a man who looked like he was in his late fifties. He was wearing clothes similar to the kind Sandra and Kline were wearing, and he looked like he was still a good fighter, even though he was in his old age.

"Uh…can I help you?" Ross asked, confused at what the heck the person wanted.

"Heh heh heh heh," snickered the man, a small wind drifting through his graying hair. His blue eyes matched the icy cold of the air around him. "Maverick is going to make me one of his top bodyguards after I'm through with you!"

"Maverick?" Ross asked.

"Sheesh, what does that old guy have anything against us, anyway? All we did was break a stick," Mike complained.

"You interfered with the past!" the man hissed. "And for that, Maverick has ordered me to kill you!"

Ross and Mike looked very uneasy. Not from terror, but about the awkwardness of the whole situation. There they were: two regular teenagers trying to find something to do, and an older man from the past pops up out of nowhere and threatens to kill them because they broke a stick in the past. That was more than enough for Ross and Mike to consider weird.

"Listen," Mike said, not thinking about what he was about to say. That was a bad habit of his: speaking before he thought things through. "We've already fought some of the bodyguards that guy has, and we beat the living heck out of 'em. You don't want to have to fight us."

The man just laughed and started to approach them. "You have it backwards, kid. It's _you_ who doesn't want to have to fight _me_."

"Wanna bet?" Mike asked, putting his fists up like he was about to engage in a street fight.

"Enough of this," Ross said. He walked over to the guy and conjured up every single bit of upper body strength he had. Using that strength, he pushed the guy into the stream behind them.

The man started screaming in rage as the stream started carrying him away to who-knows-where. Ross and Mike stared as they watched him float downwards more and more.

"He'll be all right," Ross promised, looking at his friend. "But sheesh, that guy was annoying."

"Tell me about it," Mike said. "But how do you think he got here anyway?"

"I don't know," Ross said. "He didn't make a flashy entrance through a portal or anything like that."

Both kids started trying to think things through until Ross finally came up with an idea.

"Hey, remember how we first got transported to the past? It was through that cave by the stream. I was looking at some of the drawings on the wall, and when I touched a certain part, it warped both of us there."

"Hmmmm," Mike said. "You think that cave itself could be a gate to the past?"

"I'm not sure," Ross said. "But I think it's the best bet we got right now."

Ross and Mike started walking towards the cave. They looked into the dark, threatening inside of it. It wasn't so well illuminated like last time, because the sun was out this time. But deeper in the cave was a glowing white light that looked exactly the same color as the ones that Kline and Sandra created.

"That's it, all right," Ross said in a surprisingly neutral tone. "That's where the guy came from. I'll bet that if we were to go into that, we'd wind up back in that place again with that Maverick guy."

"Well, let's go," Mike said.

"What?" Ross asked, obviously surprised and his face clearly expressing it. "What for?"

"Come on, Ross," Mike encouraged, "do you want pests like that guy just now showing up and insisting you fight them? Sooner or later, we're going to make a run-in with a guy carrying a giant sword or a mace. We gotta go back there and straighten things out with that Maverick guy now."

Ross covered his face with his hand, and he could feel his hand's icy coldness. He really didn't want to go back.

"Mike, do we have to?"

"Come on, Ross, what choice do we have?"

"All right, fine," Ross said. "We'll go back."

"Yes! Another adventure!" Mike said. Saying this, he stood straight up and ran right towards Ross's house.

"Wait a minute!" Ross yelled, stopping Mike. "You just said you wanted to go through that portal and start another adventure. Now you're running back to my house?"

"Yeah."

"What for?"

"Well, I gotta get my iPod."

Ross's expression turned to one of frustration. "We're going back to the eighteenth century. What the heck do you need an iPod for?"

"Hey, if I go one day without listening to U2 or Metallica, I'll lose my mind," Mike said, pulling that excuse right out of his head.

_That wasn't a problem the FIRST time we went to the past,_ Ross thought coldly to himself.


	8. Hospitality

Dropping the iPod into his pocket, Mike bent down and started crawling into the small, dark cave. Ross followed by going in after his friend.

It wasn't long before the two of them saw the blinding white light shooting up from the hard grounds of the cave. Ross and Mike realized that the light had to be a gate between their time and the past, and they had to find some way to seal it. The only question that remained: how?

After the two teenagers climbed through the blinding white light, they once again found themselves in the small village. They saw the small, not-so-strong looking houses and the people who lived their daily lives peacefully within them. The garb definitely resembled eighteenth-century colonial times, with tight clothing that covered practically all of the skin, save the hands and face.

"All right, Mike, we got to be careful," Ross cautioned as they continued walking around.

"What for?"

"Maverick's probably pretty upset with us right now. I mean, we _did_ break his rules about not interfering in the past…"

"Oh, Ross!" Mike said loudly and annoyed. He kicked a huge cloud of mahogany dust and dirt into the air as they continued walking through the small town. "Come on, we broke a stick! Big whoop! Why's Maverick so angry that we snapped a stick in half?!"

"Mike, that definitely doesn't look like it was a regular stick," Ross said. "It looked like something out of a warehouse or something. Didn't you notice that it looked like a perfect cylinder? It probably had some purpose with what someone in its time was going to do with it."

"Still…" Mike said uneasily, "It's just a stick for crying out loud! If it came from a warehouse like you said, it shouldn't be too hard to just find a replacement."

Ross ignored Mike's complaints and still continued walking. He acted like he knew where he was going, and indeed he did. Mike, on the other hand, seemed a little less confident.

"Hey Ross, where are you taking us, anyway?"

Ross never turned towards Mike while talking. "I thought we'd just drop in on Bien and see how he's doing. He's probably the only one out here who wouldn't squeal on us to Maverick."

"Oh…that's smart thinking, Ross!" Mike complemented. A small smile started expressing itself on Mike.

Both of them continued walking along the earthen road, occasionally getting odd looks by some of the townsfolk, but the two kids just shrugged it off. When they were trying to seal a gate between their time and another period, they couldn't care less what a bunch of people who were around long before they were even born thought of them.

They finally got to Bien's house after a few minutes of walking. The house was still the white-painted building that it was before, so not a lot could have happened since their last visit.

Ross and Mike quickly exchanged glances, and then Ross went over to the door and knocked on it. After knocking on the wooden portal three times, it opened and Bien was standing there. He started smiling when he saw his two friends.

"Ross! Mike! How've you guys been? I woke up the other morning and you guys were gone. What happened?" Bien asked with a large smile, exposing two rows of very clean and white teeth.

"Er…kind of a lot happened, actually," Ross said, pretending to be scratching the back of his neck. He had an uneasy look on his face.

"Why, what happened?"

Ross and Mike started explaining the whole thing. About how Maverick let them go inside the Temple of the Finis Tempi, about how they both got transported to their own respective pasts to witness some of the sadder or more dramatic parts of their lives, about how they went to Mike's past and broke a stick, about how Maverick got furious with them for doing so and how he sent Kline and Sandra after them, and how Ross and Mike ended up defeating Kline and Sandra, only to be attacked a few days later by a worker for Maverick in their own time. Bien seemed to be really confused about it all at first.

"Are you guys sure you didn't hit your head or something?" he asked, sounding concerned for them. "Maybe it was all a dream?"

"No, it was definitely real," Ross assured. "I swear!"

"Hmmmm," Bien said, putting two fingers on his chin. "Well, what are you two going to do now?"

"We don't know," Ross said. "Actually, yeah, we do know, but we don't know how to do it."

"What Ross thought we needed to do is to find a way to close up that gate between our time and this one," Mike said.

"So…you're from a different time, you've killed two of the government's highest body guards and now you're trying to find a way to close the gate between this time and your time, hundreds of years in the future?"

"That's the idea," Ross said. "I know it sounds farfetched, but you gotta believe us."

Bien seemed to really be struggling with the thoughts racing through his head, but after looking at the pleading looks on Ross and Mike's faces, he realized that maybe they weren't lying to him.

"All right," Bien said. "I'll believe you, even if it doesn't make complete sense to me."

Ross let out a huge breath or relief. "Thank you _so_ much, Bien. If it's not too much trouble, would you mind letting Mike and I stay with you for a little while until we figure out what to do?"

"Of course," Bien said with his normal and pleasant grin. "What are friends for?"

Ross was so thankful that Bien was showing them that much hospitality, but he thought he got his point across to express his gratitude. That solved their problem of where they were going to stay while they searched for a way to seal the gate between the two time periods, but that still left the bigger problem: how were they going to seal the gate, and how were they going to do it without Maverick seeing them?

The rest of the night wore on. Ross and Mike were perfectly comfortable in Bien's home. Even though the bedroom, the living room and the kitchen were the same room (meaning it was only a one room house) they didn't find much to complain about in it. The wooden floors looked very dirty, and the white paint on the walls was starting to yellow and peel. The inside of the house didn't look too pretty, but no one had a problem with it. (Although Ross and Mike were a bit disturbed by the two rapiers that were hanging from the wall)

Ross and Mike really didn't have much to do, but Bien kept himself busy as he started hurrying through the kitchen. He was making a lot of noise, like clanking pans together, and trying to fire up the stove.

"Bien, what are you doing?" Mike asked.

"I'm preparing us some dinner," Bien said politely, yet quickly. He didn't look back at Mike while answering his questions.

"You cook?"

"Yes. I cook very well, if I do say so myself."

"Oh," Mike said, not knowing how to respond. In order to not say anything rude, he replied with the completely neutral answer, "cool".

Bien continued slaving away in the kitchen and trying to get a meal together. Ross and Mike didn't have much choice other than to sit around and wait for something to happen. Both of them tried coming up with games that they could play to pass the time, but they didn't have much luck. Neither one of them had cards with them, so their options were very limited.

Mike was lying sprawled across Bien's bed with his hands clasped across his abdomen and stared up at the ceiling. Ross was sitting at the foot on the bed with one leg going out while the other was bent and the kneecap was eye level with him. He wasn't doing much other than occasionally picking at his fingernails or looking around the house.

Both kids, however, were carefully keeping an eye on what Bien was putting into the pot that he was going to cook their meal in. He was putting a strange assortment of ingredients in; they were wondering if he was really the "very good cook" that Bien considered himself.

They noticed Bien taking what appeared to be a three-pound chicken and adding several things to the pot with it, including water, sugar, chilly, a handful of garlic cloves, some vegetable oil, some strange looking condiment that looked like grass, some odd-looking sauces and some salt. Ross and Mike had no idea what he was trying to make. Both of them were dead silent as Bien continued plugging away at preparing their supper. Finally, Ross spoke up.

Trying to be as polite as possible, he asked, "So, what's for dinner tonight?"

"Oh, you're going to love it," Bien said. Even though he wasn't looking at Ross or Mike, it was easy to tell by the tone of voice that he was smiling when he answered it. "I call it 'Chicken in Lemon Grass and Chilly'. It's a recipe that's been passed down in my family for generations. It's really good; you're going to love it."

Ross and Mike looked at each other with a somewhat nervous look. Neither of them had heard of the recipe, and after seeing some of the ingredients Bien was throwing in, they weren't positive they were going to like it.

Minutes later when the meal was ready, Bien put the dish on the table, ready to be eaten. There was a lot of steam radiating from the chicken, meaning it was still hot. It didn't look like anything either kids had ever eaten before.

Ross and Mike nervously went over to the table and sat down. Bien was already sitting down and smiling at them while licking his lips. He must have thought he did an especially good job preparing this meal.

After Ross and Mike sat down, Bien turned towards both of them. "So, think we should say Grace?" he asked.

Ross and Mike were silent before Ross finally spoke up but never took his eyes off the food in front of him. "I'll do it," he volunteered.

Ross said a quick prayer, and after he finished, Bien started digging in. He was obviously very hungry, because he was eating a lot of his "Chicken in Lemon Grass and Chilly".

After a long while, Ross finally reached out and grabbed himself a piece. He ate it and tried swallowing it quickly, but he turned out to like the recipe a lot.

"Hey, this _is_ good," Ross said with a large smile on his face. "Man, Mike, you've _gotta_ try this!"

Mike nervously put his hand out and pulled himself off a piece of the chicken and ate it, and he thought it was delicious as well.

"Man, how come they don't have this in restaurants in our time?" Mike asked.

Bien smiled at his two friends. "I'm glad you guys like it. I told you I was a good cook, didn't I?"

Ross and Mike were too busy pigging out to answer Bien's question.

After the trio had gobbled up their dinner, Ross and Mike offered Bien a hand in cleaning up. Bien gladly accepted the offer and the three of them made the room look just as clean as it did before.

After that, however, Ross and Mike were bored again.

"Hey Bien, what do you do for fun around here?" Mike asked after all the work was done.

"Well, normally I'd go outside and find something to do out there, whether it is more chores, finding someone to talk to or just taking a walk outside and enjoying the night air," Bien said.

"We shouldn't go out there," Ross spoke up immediately. "With Maverick and all his body guards out there, we're going to get in huge trouble if we get caught. In fact, I think we'll even be lucky if we survive an encounter with him or some of his guards."

The entire room fell dead silent. Mike was the first one to speak up. In order to pass the time, he tried making friendly conversation with Bien.

"So, Mr. Bien…"

"Please, call me Bien."

"All right _Bien_…what do you do for a living?"

Bien looked a little perplexed by this question. "Well, I'd like to consider myself a Historian. I take great interest in the past and learning a lot from it."

"History?" Mike asked, a little surprised to hear this of all things. "What kind of history?"

"Well, I'm an archaeologist," Bien answered. "…if that answers your question. I'm fascinated with how people's lives went in the past and how so much has changed. How could you honestly find an artifact or some item from the past and not be interested in it?"

"I could give you three good reasons," Mike said under his breath.

Ross slammed his elbow into Mike's side as an assertive way to tell him to not act like a smart aleck when it came to Bien's interests.

"That's cool that you're into history and archaeology," Ross tried to say politely. "Sorry about Mike. History isn't exactly his best subject in school."

"That's all right," Bien said, still retaining the pleasant smile on his face. "I know history isn't everyone's favorite thing in the world, but seriously, what's not to like or be fascinated by about it?"

Ross didn't know how to answer that question, nor did he have time. Just as he was about to say something, Mike suddenly yelled something out.

"What's this?"

Ross and Bien turned to Mike. Mike was digging into his pocket and pulled out a small, rectangular device with two earphones hooking up to a small hole on the bottom. Near the top of the rectangle appeared to be some sort of screen. It was the iPod Mike had put into his pocket before they jumped through the gate.

"What _is_ that?" Ross asked.

"I don't know," Mike said. "I've never seen anything like this before in my life."

Mike figured out how to turn it on, and he saw a bizarre list of names of things he had never heard of, and another strange list right next to it.

"Weird…" Mike said, looking at the iPod. "How'd this thing end up in my pocket? I've got no memory of seeing it _once_."

"Yeah, same here," Ross said.

"What are these things? Are these _names_? U2…Metallica…Sting…what the heck are all these?"

Bien suddenly looked like he was remembering something very important. He began gripping at his hair and tugging at it, like he was scrambling to remember something important.

"Those names sound _so_ familiar!" he exclaimed. "I've definitely heard those names somewhere, but I can't remember…"

"It's all right," Ross said, trying to ease Bien. "Don't worry about it; I'm sure it's not anything important."

Bien nodded, but still looked like the thought was troubling him. Just as he was about to say something, there was a knock on the door. Bien got up and looked out through one of the side windows to see who it was.

"Uh-oh," Bien said nervously. "It's some of Maverick's guards. Ross, Mike. Hide!"

Ross and Mike scampered under Bien's bed and tried to squeeze themselves in. When they were both as far in as they could get, Bien opened up the door to greet the guards.

"Can I help you?" Bien asked the guards, trying to not sound suspicious.

"Have you seen two boys?" one of the three guards asked. "They're both pretty skinny; one has black hair and the other has a longer, darker shade of blonde. Maverick is looking for them."

"No, I haven't seen them," Bien said, hoping his poker face was doing the trick.

"You sure?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right, then. Thank you for your time," the guard said. Saying this, he led the other two guards away and to other houses, looking for the kids.

Bien looked under the bed and gave Ross and Mike a signal that told them it was okay to come out. Both kids scrambled out of the bed and were happy to not be packed so tightly together anymore.

"Wow," Ross said, realizing how close he and Mike were to getting caught by the guards. "That was a close one."


	9. Breaking into the Temple

The entire house was quiet. The only sound that could be heard was the sound of the wind blowing outside and the sound of the stove quietly burning, which was the only thing in the house that was keeping the three warm.

Ross, Mike and Bien had no idea what to say. They were feeling very uncomfortable after some of Maverick's guards had just come to search for them. At first, Ross and Mike just wanted to leave this place and find a way back to their own time with as little trouble as possible. But now they realized they had an even larger objective: to find a way to close the gate that linked Bien and Maverick's time to theirs.

"What are we going to do?" Mike asked, breaking the silence.

"I'm not sure," Ross answered quietly. "But with Maverick's guards out there acting like headhunters, we can't really do much if we wanna stay alive."

Bien stood up like he was some sort of leader or commander. He looked as if he had an idea about what they had to do.

"Bien, what's up?" Ross asked, staring up at Bien as he began standing.

"Yeah, you look like you're ready to raid some place," Mike added.

Bien went over to his two rapiers hanging crossed on the wall. "Not me," he said in a stern voice. He ripped the rapiers off the wall and a loud _clanging_ sound erupted. _"We._"

"Wait, what do you mean, 'we'?" Mike asked, sounding a little desperate and scared.

"I think he means he wants us to go out and kill some of those guards," Ross said glumly.

"No," Bien corrected. "We've got more important things to worry about right now. We've got to focus on eliminating the source of the problem."

"Source of the problem?" Ross asked, his voice heightening with fear as well. "But that would mean breaking into the temple."

"Precisely," Bien said, nodding his head. He dropped his two rapiers on the ground right in front of Ross and Mike.

"But that would mean breaking into the temple," Ross said.

"Maverick's got that place guarded pretty heavy," Mike said. "There's no possible way we could get in."

"That's what these are for," Maverick said, pointing to the rapiers. "They're not too heavy and they're very easy to control. And if you don't kill whoever you attack with it, the _least_ you could do is give them a pretty bad wound."

"Sorry, Bien," Ross said, but lacked the apologetic tone that his statement demanded. "I'm not going to kill someone to do this. There's got to be a better way."

"Ross, sometimes you need to get over death and move on with life. You know what I'm saying?" Bien said, obviously doing his best to change Ross's mind.

Ross and Mike didn't have much choice. Bien was taking this really seriously, but they realized he was right. If they wanted to close the time gate, they'd probably have to at least talk to Maverick about it, no matter what that meant. Maverick was, after all, the head of the Temple of the Finis Tempi.

Ross, Mike and Bien slowly slid out into the quiet night. The air was still with the occasional gust of wind that could be heard in all the houses. While there were a few lights on inside some of the houses, there didn't seem to be much movement in any of them. And no one was outside. All the children had gone inside and the street vendors had closed up for the evening.

The sky was dark with a few white stars twinkling down and barley illuminated the ground in front of them. The ground was easily distinguishable from the houses and sky, and the darkness wasn't so thick that the trio couldn't see much in front of them. The temple was in clear view, as were the two guards standing in front of it, guarding the stairway up inside.

"This is it," Bien said, looking at Ross and Mike. "There's no turning back now. Are you guys ready?"

"I guess," Ross said. He had a rapier clutched in his right hand while Bien had the other one. Mike was pretty much going in defenseless, which was both something he should be thankful for, as well as a curse. (He was thankful for it because it meant he didn't have to fight, but the downside was that he couldn't defend himself)

The two guards were suspiciously staring at Ross, Mike and Bien as they continued to approach. Both of them pulled out their heavy swords and an audible sheath sound was heard as the weapons were drawn.

One of the guards approached the three of them as they continued to advance. Ross and Mike had nervous looks on their faces while Bien's looked relatively confident and determined.

"You! Stop right there!" the guard ordered. He didn't look like a stereotypical guard with heavy armor or anything like that at all. In fact, he didn't seem to be wearing any armor at all. The only thing he had on was the thin, dark gray cloak that Kline and Sandra used to wear.

Bien didn't stop. He continued walking closer and closer, showing no signs of giving into the guard's request.

"Stop, or Maverick will have you thrown in the dungeon!" the guard ordered again.

Without even saying a word, Bien swung his rapier around. The sound of the silver blade sliced the air. With the sharp end of the blade, Bien slit the guard's throat, causing a violent flow of blood to start pouring from the guard's neck.

The guard gagged for a few seconds before falling on his knees and onto the ground, dead. The other guard took notice of this and started charging, ready to impale Bien with his sword.

Bien, however, just stuck the rapier out and the guard ran right into the point of it. The guard moaned in pain, and then yelped when Bien yanked the pointed end of the rapier out. Bien fired one quick punch to the guard's face and knocked him onto the ground. As soon as the guard was on the ground, Bien stomped down on the guard's head to deliver the finishing blow.

Barely acting like he had done anything, Bien turned around to Ross and Mike, who were both staring in awe and disbelief at him. "Come on!" Bien yelled, waving his hand for Ross and Mike to come.

The two teenagers started running towards the temple like some invisible force was drawing them to it. Neither of them wanted to go, but for some reason, they couldn't refuse running to the temple. It was automatic.

Bien started hurrying up the stone stairs to the temple with Ross and Mike following him. They both ran into the temple very easily (there was no door leading inside) and they were running down the long halls of the Temple of the Finis Tempi. The sounds of their footsteps were heard as they continued running on the marble tiled floor. (This was probably pretty expensive, considering the time period they were in)

The hallways seemed to never end and always lead back into another hallway that looked exactly like the last. For all they knew, the three of them could have been running in circles. And unfortunately, they didn't doubt it.

"Bien, do you have _any_ idea where you're going?" Mike asked, expecting a negative answer.

"He's got to be somewhere," Bien said, not directly answering Mike's question.

The long hallways of the temple were dark and very unwelcoming. The stone floors had a menacing touch to them that just added to the environment. The temple was very creepy and disturbing at night, and all three of them thought this. However, not one of them spoke up to admit it.

After circling through the dark and spooky hallways for a long time, Ross stumbled upon something. While Mike and Bien continued walking ahead, Ross steered off to the side and tried to look at something to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

"Guys, hold up!" Ross whispered in a commanding tone as Mike and Bien kept trudging on. They both stopped and turned around to see what Ross had just seen. They quickly started making their way back to him.

What Ross had found was a giant door that had been camouflaged somewhat well in one of the walls. The fact that it was dark out only made it look harder.

"What'd you find?" Mike asked.

"I dunno," Ross said. "Looks like a door or something."

Bien continued staring at it. It was indeed a door that Ross had found, but he noticed something on it that Ross didn't. There was something on the door that was eye level with him. It looked like some sort of sign.

"Can either of you read that?" Bien asked, pointing to the sign. There were words written on it, but the darkness proved to make the sign incredibly difficult to read.

Ross and Mike looked at the door and started squinting at it, trying to read the single word that was written on it. It didn't take Ross long to figure it out, and he was breathless when he was able to decipher it.

"It says MAVERICK on it," Ross said in an uneasy tone.

"Maverick?" Bien asked. "He's the one we're after, right?"

"Yeah," Mike answered. "And if he catches us in here, we're dead."

"That's why we're going to strike first, right?" Bien asked as he drew a rapier from his belt.

"Right," Ross and Mike said in unison. They were still very uneasy with the whole idea, though.

A moment later, a giant white flash was seen emitting through the cracks above and below the door. Ross, Mike and Bien were all surprised by the quick appearance and intensity of the white light. As quickly as the light first appeared, it was gone.

"There's something going on in that room!" Ross yelled.

"No, really?" Mike asked in a sarcastic way.

"Enough," Bien said. "Come on, let's head in there and see what's going on."

Bien kicked the door open, and they saw where the white light was coming from. A giant time portal had been formed in the room. The room was completely empty except for a large, luxurious looking (for the time) bed, and of course, Maverick himself.

But by the time the trio saw Maverick, he was already walking into the portal. The three of them had to assume Maverick was about to do something very bad and drastic after entering the portal, so they ran in after him.

After Maverick hopped through the portal he had just created, the three friends ran in after him. Bien was the last one to go in, and he made it through just moments before the portal closed.

Ross, Mike and Bien felt like they were flying literally thousands of miles an hour through a white abyss. There was nothing around them except for a bright white light that seemed to get closer and closer to them as they continued sailing through the white abyss. They were going so fast, none of the three could even breathe.

After what felt like a very long time, the trio finally hit the white light emitting from the center of the abyss that they seemed to be falling through. But when that happened, the light somehow got even brighter, but it faded away very quickly. Once it faded away, Ross, Mike and Bien found themselves in what was obviously another time period.

Around the three, there were large buildings with huge smoke stacks. The smoke stacks were spitting out a steady stream of black smoke, polluting the air and creating a foul odor. There seemed to be loud noises coming from inside the tall buildings. Leading from inside the tall buildings were tracks that were able to transport large carts. The carts were full of coal, and the hardest part of it all was that small children who looked like they were eight or nine were the ones who had to push the carts down the tracks that ran as far as the eye could see.

"Whoa," Mike said, taking in their new surroundings. "Where are we?"

"It looks like we're in the time of the Industrial Revolution," Ross deduced when he saw everything going on.

"I'm afraid I don't know about that," Bien said in an almost sorrowful way.

_Probably not,_ Ross thought to himself. _You come from the late 1700's. The Industrial Revolution didn't come around for almost a hundred years later._

Ross, Mike and Bien stood standing there for a while, not knowing what it was that they were supposed to do. Why did Maverick come here? Or did he do something to send Ross and Mike and Bien down a different path in time than he did?

The silence between them was broken when they heard the small boy who was trying to push the carts loaded with coal towards the giant factory they were standing in front of. The three turned their attention to why the boy was screaming, and they saw what it was.

Maverick was standing right by the small child with two more of his bodyguards. They were obviously threatening him about something, and the boy got scared and ran inside the factory.

Ross, Mike and Bien had no idea what Maverick or his bodyguards could have said to the boy to terrify him, but they had more important things to worry about.

Maverick pulled out a large bag and started taking giant handfuls of coal from the cart the small child was wheeling and stuffed them into the bag. Mike spoke up after he saw all the coal Maverick was stealing.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!"

Maverick and his two bodyguards looked up and were very irritated to see Ross, Mike and Bien standing there. Scowling, he turned to his two bodyguards.

"Don't worry about them; I've already got all the coal I need," Maverick said.

Maverick held the giant bag of coal he stole in one hand and turned away. With his free hand, he held it out and another white portal started appearing out of thin air.

"Wow, that guy can create portals," Mike said sarcastically. "Awesome."

"Roris! Kip! Get in here now!" Maverick ordered to his two bodyguards.

His two bodyguards started heading into the portal after him. Kip made it in the portal all right, but just as Roris was about to get in, something nailed him in the back of the head, knocking him to the ground.

Ross and Mike were surprised when they saw what had hit him. It initially looked like a giant black rock, but when they turned their heads, they saw Bien staring at him as if he had just done something a little out of character.

All Bien had to do was pick up a rock he saw on the ground. From there on, he relied on accuracy and force to nail one of them in the back of the head, and it worked. It successfully hit Roris.

Roris turned around and glared at the three of them, but he didn't do anything. Roris's brown eyes widened with fear. He had messy, long brown hair and a thick beard. His teeth looked grey and very unhealthy, but he had a sneer on his face. He tried to back away when he saw Bien draw the rapier from his belt again.

"You're toast!" Ross threatened.

Roris turned around and started running for his life, but Ross was much faster. (It was expected after seeing how fast he had to run from his bus stop every afternoon after school when he lived in Kansas)

When Ross caught up with Roris, he made a diving leap and tried to tackle the bodyguard. It succeeded and Roris was dragged to the ground. Ross tried to keep Roris pinned to the dirt until Bien was able to make it over.

Bien only took a few additional seconds before he was over. In one fell swoop, he had his rapier ready to attack, flipped Roris over so they were looking into each other's eyes, and with the sharp tip of the rapier near the handle, Bien slashed Roris's throat.

Roris died instantly in one scream of pain, but there was no struggle after that.

Ross, Mike and Bien were all very quiet and disturbed about what it was that they just had to do.

"Man, how many more people are we going to have to kill?" Ross asked. "Can't we just do this just by capturing Maverick and making sure he doesn't keep sending guys to kill Mike and me?"

"Ross, this isn't a fable," Bien cautioned. "Life doesn't work like that. I've learned that after being an archaeologist for a while."

Ross just let out a small sigh. He knew Bien was right. He was just upset that now three people were dead because of this dispute.

"Hey, am I the only one wondering why Maverick even came here to get some coal in the first place?" Mike interjected, quickly passing glances to both Ross and to Bien.

"Yes, I've been wondering about that as well," Bien said.

"Maybe he's building something and coal is its fuel source," Ross suggested.

"Or maybe he's trying to make a fire," Mike said.

"What would he need a fire for?" Ross asked. "He's got the equipment he needs to make a fire already, like those wooden sticks. Which leads us back to how this whole thing started: why does Maverick want to kill us just because you broke a stick, anyway?"

"This sounds like it could get pretty complicated," Bien sighed.

"Hopefully not," Ross said, trying to stay optimistic. "Maybe if we can just talk to Maverick about all this, we can figure out what's going on and we can try to get this sorted out."

_Maybe._


	10. Rome

The struggle with Roris wasn't exactly something Ross, Mike or Bien wanted to remember. Unfortunately for them, they didn't have any time to gather their thoughts.

Looking ahead, all of them saw the portal that Roris was about to escape through but was killed before he could make it through.

"Maverick must have gone through there," Ross said, pointing to the portal.

"You think we could still catch him if we go through?" Mike asked.

"There's no way we're going to catch him by standing here like this, is there?"

"Come on, guys," Bien said. "We're not done yet; we've still got a lot to do."

Ross nodded his head, and then he led his two friends into the shimmering white portal in front of them. Once again, all of them felt as if they were traveling at the speed of light through the long, white trail. When they were finally back on their two feet, the trio found themselves in a completely different society than before. The pollution and the loud machines were gone. There were still some large buildings, but the majority of them looked like they were made completely out of marble.

The sky was a pale shade of blue and there wasn't a trace of a cloud in the sky. The roads were made of rocks jumbled together, but it apparently got the job done. Lots of people were walking around wearing togas, whether they were men, women or children. The entire place seemed to be very crowded and busy with merchants trying to sell things, people looking around for something to do, and maybe a few people on special business.

"Where do you think we are?" Bien asked. His dark eyes were widening as he looked around, trying to pick up some clue in the environment where they were.

"I don't know," Ross said. "Think we might have traveled through time again?"

"It looks like it," Bien said. "I don't think this would look like some other place during that time period we were just in…"

Bien looked around and saw people getting by in chariots and there seemed to be several temples all over the place. In front of the temples were giant statues depicting the gods who he assumed the culture they were in worshipped.

Bien started laughing.

"_Now_ I think I know where we are," he said with a smile on his face.

"Really?" Ross asked, starting to smile himself. "Where do you think we are?"

"Isn't is obvious?" Bien asked, a bit surprised that Ross didn't catch on. "We're in ancient Rome."

"Ancient Rome?" Ross asked, looking at everything around him and making sure Bien was right. The thought just sounded so farfetched.

"Ew! Gross!" Mike exclaimed, who hadn't been paying attention to a word any of them had said. "There are a bunch of old, fat, naked guys sitting in a hot tub together!"

"Yup, we're in Rome all right," Ross said.

"Mike doesn't know that's the way the upper class bathed at the time?" Bien asked, a little surprised at this as well.

"History really isn't Mike's favorite subject," Ross said very casually. He decided promptly afterwards they need to get back on topic. "Okay, so we're in ancient Rome, right? I'm talking, something like 200 B.C., right?"

"Correct," Bien said, smiling as if he were a professor and Ross was one of his pupils who had just answered a question right.

"Then that must mean Maverick is around here somewhere," Ross said glumly. He began passing his glances through the crowded streets, all the shopping plazas and arcades and seeing that there were more people out now than one could count.

"Finding him could prove to be difficult," Bien said with a touch of concern in his voice.

"My question is what the heck he wants here," Ross said. "I mean, what does he need here that has anything to do with the coal he swiped from the industrial revolution period just now?"

Bien was about to say something until Mike jumped in.

"Ross! Bien! There's Maverick right there!"

Mike pointed to a large crowd where people were suddenly screaming and running away. When the throng of terrified people cleared, Ross could clearly see Maverick was standing there. Right next to him was Kip, his other body guard. Right beside the two on the ground was the body of what looked like an ordinary citizen. He was in a pile of blood, and Maverick was holding something in his hand. The object Maverick was holding was a piece of paper rolled up. The paper also had blood smeared on it.

"Well, it seems as if trying to finish you off was too hard for Roris," Maverick said. "But that's all right. He can rest right outside a factory for all I care."

"Maverick," Ross yelled, taking a step forward, "What the heck are doing all this for? Why are you trying to kill Mike and me just because we broke a stick in the past? And why are you going to all these different places and getting random items, like coal or that piece of paper, anyway?"

"That is none of your concern," Maverick said coldly. "Kip, I think it's time you taught these three what happens when you mess with me!"

Maverick immediately started running away, but Kip stayed. His short, dark hair looked pretty ruffled, and his sneer showed saffron teeth. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a dagger with fresh blood on it.

_That must have been what he used to kill that guy with_, Ross deduced. _The guy Maverick stole that rolled up sheet of paper from. I wonder what was on it…_

"Roris may have let you go," Kip threatened as he pointed the dagger at Ross, Mike and Bien, "But it's about time you guys got out of Maverick's hair for good!"

"Gee, I thought mages like him were supposed to be friendly," Mike said with a sneer on his face.

"Not when you upset them!" Kip said with a violent look. "Prepare to meet your maker!"

Ross, Mike and Bien all looked very nervous as Kip started pointing his dagger right at them and started charging with the blade ready to impale one of them.

All three of them jumped out of the way at once, and soon, they had Kip surrounded. Bien pulled out his rapier and put the blade right under Kip's throat.

"You're nothing but talk," Bien mocked.

Kip shot his dagger up and knocked Bien's rapier out of the way. Unfortunately for Bien, the dagger also struck a thin spot on the rapier's blade, causing the blade to bend and be no longer useful.

"Ha!" Kip yelled as he shoved his way out of the circle Ross, Mike and Bien had formed around him. "You don't have your sword anymore. What are you gonna do now?"

But Bien didn't seem too scared. He reached around to the other side of his belt and pulled out his second rapier. "You might want to think twice before challenging me," he taunted.

Kip snarled, and then he started running down the streets and into a back path.

Bien growled when he saw Kip got away, but he quickly passed his only remaining rapier to Ross.

"Ross, you can run faster than I can. Take this and lead the way," Bien said, insisting that Ross take the sword.

"Are you sure that thing will help us get Kip at all?" Mike asked. "That blade seemed to snap pretty easily."

"It's part of the rapier's design," Bien said. "The rapier has a very thin blade and it's not uncommon at all for it to be snapped, bent or ruined when it strikes or is struck by something much heavier or harder."

"Guys, do we really have time for this?" Ross asked. "Kip's getting away, you know."

Ross turned around and started running down the path that Kip ran down, with Mike and Bien trying to keep up as well as they could.

Ross was much faster than Kip was, and that was soon realized. In just a few seconds, Ross could faintly see Kip running from them, but he was several yards ahead of them, and Ross was already getting tired after the rough journey that he was having so far.

But Kip seemed to be slowing down as well. When he saw how close behind Ross was, he started running even faster than he was before. He eventually made it back out into a public street with a giant temple right in front of him. Ross was soon out into the main road as well, the rapier that Bien gave him ready to strike.

Kip turned around and saw Ross running right at him, so he had to think fast. He turned around and started sprinting up the stairs to the temple, with Ross in close pursuit.

Before long, Ross and Kip were at the top of the very long marble stairs leading up into the temple, but the doors were shut tight, preventing anyone from going in. However, not many people were standing around. All the civilians were terrified of the fight that was going on in front of them and were running for their lives.

Ross took the rapier Bien gave him and started taking horizontal swings at Kip's head. Kip kept dodging them, but not by much. He frequently had to throw his body to the side so that Ross wouldn't hit him. With the rapier, Ross had the advantage of speed and length over Kip's dagger.

Kip finally had enough of it after a while and started running, but Ross wasn't about to give up so easily. He started running after Kip, and Kip knew that if he didn't act fast, he'd be dead.

Thinking quickly, Kip jumped on a marble statue of Mars (the Roman god that the temple was devoted to) which was adjacent to the set of marble stairs. He tried climbing up to the tip of it. Ross wouldn't be able to swing Bien's rapier so easily from there.

Ross, however, was not intimidated. He jumped on the statue and tried climbing up it as quickly as possible, and Kip was surprised with the boy's integrity.

Ross tried climbing up higher and higher, but now Kip had the height advantage. When Ross was still trying to climb up, Kip swiped his hand down and tried to cause Ross to lose his grip and fall to the pavement below.

Kip's plan helped a little, but it didn't accomplish its main goal. When Kip continued taking swipes and attempting to knock Ross off the statue, Ross temporarily lost his group and fumbled. The rapier fell out of his hand as a result and got knocked onto the ground. Ross, however, stayed. He was gripping the side with a very solid grasp, and Kip could see he wasn't about to let go.

Kip instead tried to position himself so that he could hold onto the statues head and be able to kick Ross instead of blindly swinging his fist.

Ross was clearly getting worn out. However, he had a little help from below in just moments.

"Ross!" a familiar voice called.

Ross looked to the ground and saw Mike and Bien had finally caught up to him and were staring at Ross as they saw him struggling to stay alive as he battled Kip on top of the statue.

"Bien, Ross looks like he's in trouble," Mike said uneasily. "Shouldn't we do something?"

"Yeah, but _can_ we do? We won't be able to fight Kip on that statue…" Bien said. He started trailing off when he saw his rapier on the ground.

Thinking quickly, Bien ran over to the rapier and yelled, "Ross! Catch!"

Bien tossed the rapier up and Ross saw the thin blade spiraling in the air in front of him. In one defining moment, Ross grabbed the handle of the rapier and caught it.

Before Bien or Mike could celebrate Ross making the catch, Ross took the rapier and slashed Kip across the stomach with it.

Kip sounded like he just choked on something. After getting the wound, he just stared in disbelief at Ross. For several seconds, there was dead silence. Blood was now pouring from Kip's stomach like a small, red waterfall, leaving a crimson patch on his clothes.

Slowly, Kip lost his grip of holding onto the statue. He started falling backwards, and in only a few seconds, his grip on the statue was completely gone. Kip fell off the statue and landed back flat on the marble below. His eyes were wide and he showed no signs of life. He was obviously dead.

Breathing heavily, Ross slowly made his way down the statue. When he made it all the way down, he walked over to his two friends. Looking a bit guilty, he handed back Bien's rapier, stained with red.

"I can't believe I had to do that," Ross said. "I never wanted to kill him. I don't even know what drove me to do it. I know I don't have the guts to do that."

"Maybe it was because your life was in danger?" Mike suggested.

"That's probably it," Bien said.

Ross was still breathing heavy. He was looking everywhere else except at Mike and Bien. He looked like a complete mess and looked like he had just gone through something very demanding and hard.

"Well, at least Maverick's two bodyguards are out of the way now," Mike said, trying his best to sound optimistic. "Maybe we can figure out what he was doing now."

"That's right," Bien said. "Now that those two are no longer in our hair, Maverick is completely defenseless. All we have to do now is find him."

"That might be hard," Ross said coldly. "Maybe he's already gone through another portal with whatever he came here to get."

"Oh yeah," Mike said. "If he's gone now, then we're screwed. What the heck did he want that paper for anyway?"

"Who knows?" Bien asked.

"Yeah, that paper he stole is thousands of years old," Ross mumbled. "What was on it that could help him in any way with whatever his plan is?"

"You think he has a plan?" Mike asked.

"Mike, what guy goes to the past and gets things like coal or papers without good reason to?" Ross asked. "He's gotta have something up his sleeve. We should figure out what it is before it's too late."

Bien smiled. "I like the sounds of this. Three friends going on an adventure. Is that what's happening here?"

"Yeah," Ross said softly. _"Wow. All this sprouted from trying to find a way to close up the gate between my time and Maverick's…"_


	11. Emotional Reunion

The streets were completely quiet now that the fight was over. All the Roman civilians were too terrified to come out and do anything, fearing that Ross would go come out and kill them as well with that sword.

"Nice," Ross said, realizing everyone around was terrified of him. "The proudest empire that this world has ever seen, and I've just made myself look like a mass murderer in it. I hope this won't pop up in our history books."

Mike scoffed. "I hope you're kidding, because we've got bigger things to worry about now."

"Yes," Bien said sternly. "If you want to make it through this journey and find out what Maverick intends to do, then you've got to stay focused on what's happening now."

"I know!" Ross said, agitated. "How stupid do you guys think I am? I know finding Maverick is the most important thing right now."

"Good," Bien said. "Mike. Ross. Let's get a move on."

The three of them started turning around and began walking through the Roman streets. They had no idea where they were going; all they knew was that they wanted to find Maverick and put an end to whatever he was planning.

The search didn't take long. After only a few minutes of walking, the trio found Maverick staring at them. He was poised between two villas, almost like he was waiting for them. Right behind him was another portal, which led to a place only Maverick knew.

"Admirable," Maverick said. "I never would have suspected a child such as yourself would have the stomach to murder someone."

Ross started feeling really guilt-ridden about what he had to do to Kip in order to survive. He hoped that Maverick was actually up to something awful and killing Kip would actually be something that indirectly helped save hundreds or even thousands of lives.

"Maverick, why'd you come back here anyway?" Ross yelled, trying to change the subject.

"Yeah," Mike said. "What'd you have to steal that paper for anyway? What was on it?!"

Maverick laughed. "You think I'm going to tell you? You really are pathetic."

Ross, Mike and Bien only growled at the remarks Maverick was making.

"Oh yeah?" Ross said, trying to get all his courage out. "Well, if we're so pathetic, then how'd we make it here?! Huh?!"

Maverick continued giving Ross a cold stare. Ross turned to Bien and snapped, "Bien! Gimme your rapier!"

Maverick started laughing at Ross's demand. "You might want to think twice before you say that, Ross."

Ross slowly turned to Maverick and saw several guards coming out from the time gate that Maverick just created. They didn't have any weapons, but it was obvious that they knew how to fight and weren't afraid to. Ross knew he couldn't possibly take all of them on at once.

"Follow me," Maverick said. He waved his hand in a beckoning way for Ross, Mike and Bien to come towards them. The three had no choice. They reluctantly went over to Maverick as he forced them through the time gate. The roller-coaster like feel wasn't able to be enjoyed this time due to the circumstances they were under.

When the long tunnel finally ended, Ross, Mike and Bien found themselves inside the temple of the Finis Tempi once again. Maverick and all his guards were accompanying them.

"I think you three need to be thrown in the dungeon," Maverick said with a cold grin on his face.

"A dungeon?" Mike asked as two guards grabbed him by the arms and started hauling him off. "What kind of temple is this, anyway?"

In a matter of minutes, Ross, Mike and Bien were dragged to the basement of the temple. There was a long, but one-way hall that led to a large wooden door. When the door opened, Ross and Mike could clearly see that it was a dungeon, all right.

Ross, Mike and Bien were tossed in the small room. A guard came in and walked over to Bien, and then grabbed the rapier from him.

"Looks like you won't be needing this," the guard said in a cocky way. "That is, if you even remember how to use it after you see the little surprise Maverick has in store for you."

The guard slammed the door shut. The entire room became very dark with barely any light in it all. Ross, Mike and Bien weren't chained to anything, but they had absolutely nothing to do other than just sit and wait.

" 'The little surprise Maverick has in store for us'?" Mike asked a short while after the guard had locked them in the dungeon. There was a small window that was barred, but right through it, it was clear a guard was standing out front the cell, guarding it in case someone were to come to try to set them free.

The time wore on more and more. Ross, Mike and Bien were very scared of what it was that Maverick was going to do to them. It was clear that Maverick wasn't the typical, average monk that one would assume loved peace. Rather, he seemed to be very hostile and very aggressive, especially in times when it was necessary.

The dungeon seemed to be made completely of solid stone. Although the stone was probably a shade of gray, the dark atmosphere of the dungeon made it look dark blue. The walls were neatly piled up of stone, but the floors were less even. The dungeon was actually fairly clean. There were no chains in it, no rats or other animals, and no remains of other people previously caught.

"Man!" Mike yelled, angrily pacing around the jail cell, "What is Maverick gonna do to us? He sounded like he had a plan!"

"And I do," said a familiar voice from behind.

Ross, Mike and Bien turned around. Sure enough, Maverick was standing in the doorway to the dungeon. He had several guards around him so the three couldn't do anything to him if they tried.

"Come on, Maverick," Ross whined, "what are you going to do to us?"

"Better yet, why do you want to do anything to us in the first place?" Mike asked loudly.

"I do not think we've done anything wrong," Bien said in their defense. "We wouldn't have come back here if you didn't send your soldiers to kill my friends in their time period."

Maverick looked very serious. "It's those two's fault!" he accused as he pointed to Ross and Mike. "I told them distinctly to _not_ interfere with the past!"

"For crying out loud!" Ross yelled, his temper beginning to boil over, "it was just a broken stick! What's the big deal about Mike and I breaking a stick?!"

"I need not explain," Maverick said calmly. "But I've come here to tell you what will await you two later tonight."

"Wait a minute," Mike said. "You said the _two_ of us, but we're _three_. Do people from this age not know how to count or what!"

Maverick scowled. "I was referring to you and Ross," he said in an irritable voice. "You two will have your memory wiped later tonight."

Ross and Mike perked up.

"Wipe our memories?" Ross asked. "What are you talking about?"

"You'll see what I mean soon enough," Maverick said softly. He turned away and started walking from the dungeon with his guards in pursuit.

"Wait!" Mike yelled. "Why doesn't Bien have to get _his_ memory wiped or whatever?"

Maverick stopped. He turned his head slightly so they could see the corner of his eye. "I'll see you later tonight."

Maverick continued walking away and his guards followed him up. Ross and Mike were left staring in complete awe and terror after what Maverick had just threatened to do.

Several hours passed, and the three of them were still completely helpless as they waited in the dungeon for the inevitable to happen. A guard still stood outside the dungeon door, guarding them just in case something was to go wrong.

"Have our memories wiped?" Mike yelled loudly. "Could he have been _any_ more cryptic?!"

"Mike, calm down," Ross said. "It doesn't sound painful or anything. Maybe it won't be so awful."

"Ross, what part did you not get about what Maverick said? We're getting our _memories wiped!_ Erased! Taken from us! Put into a blender while on the 'gooify' setting!"

Ross just sighed. It was a stressful enough situation already and Mike was only adding to the anxiety. Bien, however, seemed to be strangely calm.

"Bien, you're taking this pretty well," Ross said.

Bien let out a nervous chuckle. "I'm not about to have my memories taken from me. I can't imagine what that would be like."

"Hey, guard!" yelled Mike at the other end of the dungeon. "I gotta go to the bathroom!"

Ross turned around. He saw that Mike was gripping the iron bars and screaming at the guard standing right outside the dungeon door at the top of his lungs.

"Hey! I really got to answer nature's call! I feel like my manlihood is about to burst!" Mike yelled to the guard on the other side of the door.

The guard stood still and did his best to ignore Mike. But Mike was persistent.

"Come on, can you at least take me to the little pit where I can relieve myself?...I know you can hear me! Please? I'll be your best friend! Please? Please? Please?"

The guard was clearly losing his patience, and so were Ross and Bien. Both of them looked at each other, and it was obvious just by the other's expression that they were both extremely annoyed with Mike and his inability to accept "no" for an answer.

The guard finally had enough of it. "Hey!" he yelled in a surprisingly sharp voice that was loud enough to make all three prisoners jump. "Can a couple of you guys get over here and escort this child to the place of relief?"

"Place of relief?" Ross asked softly, trying hard not to chuckle at the thought of whoever named it.

A few guards came and opened the door to the dungeon. Four of them surrounded Mike as they let him go out the door and on their way to the place that they considered to be the restrooms. As they were leading Mike out, one of the guards turned to Ross and Bien, who were sitting in a corner of the dungeon.

"If you either of you need to go as well, now's the time. Because you're not getting out again tonight, no matter how much you complain," the guard warned.

Ross shrugged. _I guess I could at least try. I'm not going to get the opportunity again tonight._

Ross stood up and accompanied Mike as the guards led both of them to use the restrooms. The guards were relieved to hear Mike's non-stop complaining finally stop.

After the two had gone, they were being led back into the dungeon. But as they were walking back, one of the guards turned to another.

"Hey, why don't we let the young ones quiver in fear and show them the machine Maverick has in store for them?" the guard suggested.

"I don't know," another guard added. "I think Maverick wants them to not know what the machine looks like in order to make them more fearful."

"Think of the look on their faces when they see it, though!" the first guard insisted, a small smile starting to shine through. "They'll be scared out of their wits knowing that they're going to be hooked up to that thing later tonight when she's got it ready!"

The second guard sighed and then turned to the other two. He then sighed again and turned back to the first one. "You realize Maverick is going to have our heads if he catches us doing this, right?"

Ross and Mike looked at each other. Both of them were very nervous about what they were about to see. It wasn't a very comforting thought that they were both going to be hooked up to a machine that was so big it would take hours in advance just to get it ready. The even scarier part is that they knew the machine was going to wipe their memory somehow once they were hooked up to it.

The guards led Ross and Mike to a room that was surprisingly close to their dungeon. The room had a very large door and looked like it was leading into a very important room. One of the guards opened it and Ross and Mike were forced inside. As soon as they were inside, the guards slammed the door shut and let Ross and Mike marvel at what was in front of them.

Ross and Mike were in the room with the machine that was going to wipe their memories. The machine in front of them was giant. It looked completely made of metal and had several switches and controls on it. It looked way too advanced for Ross and Mike's time, never mind the late eighteenth century. There was a rubber chair that was hooked into the machine and a helmet with several wires connecting the helmet to the machine. There was also what appeared to be a large television screen in the center of the machine. But the biggest shock was still to come. Ross and Mike saw that they were not alone in the room.

Sitting at a chair and getting all the controls set was a girl. She looked like she was no older than Ross or Mike. Her hair was a lighter shade of blonde than Mike's and it went down to about the base of her neck.

"Mike," Ross said, "is that girl going to wipe our memories? She looks as old as we are."

"I know," Mike said. "Maybe it's really a forty-year old."

"Forty-year old?" the girl asked in a loud tone. She spun her chair around so she was facing Ross and Mike. "Well, for your information, I…"

She trailed off. Her eyes widened in complete disbelief at who she was staring at. Her pale blue eyes looked completely shocked and her mouth was hanging wide open. She looked like she had stopped breathing for a moment.

Ross looked exactly the same. His eyes and mouth were also wide, but the expression on his face looked much more shocked.

"N…no," the girl said, stammering very loudly. "You can't be…"

"…Beth?" Ross asked, still not believing his eyes.

"…Ross?" the girl asked.

There was no doubt left in Ross's mind. It was Beth all right.

Ross's eyes then started squinting a little. His teeth started becoming grit and were shaking up and down wildly. His eyes turned red.

"Beth!" Ross said, sounding very hurt. His red eyes started turning watery. As if he was a little kid again, he turned away and started forcing himself to walk towards a wall. He dropped his head and it just hung. His fists were clenched and looked like they were ready to tear something apart.

"…Ross?" Beth asked, looking very concerned.

Ross turned around. Now there were tears pouring from his eyes, but there were already tear trails visible running down his cheeks. He was having an emotional breakdown.

"Ross?" Mike asked in equal disbelief.

"Why, Beth?!" Ross yelled, the tears not disappearing from his face.

"Ross…" Mike said. In all the years that Mike knew Ross, Mike had never seen Ross cry. Not once. Until now. "I don't think this is the best time to turn all emotional."

"Ross," Beth said with a voice full of sorrow. She hopped down from the chair and went over to the one who she once held in her heart. "I don't want to see you like this after all the time we've been apart."

Ross's tears were slowing down, but they were replaced with rage now. "Oh, you think I want to see you like _this_?!" he yelled loudly and very violently as he tried to fight back even more tears. "Look at you! Why are you working for Maverick!"

"Ross…how did you get here?..." Beth asked timidly.

"Forget that!" Ross yelled. "I want to know what the hell you're doing working for Maverick!"

Beth was stunned. She didn't know what to say. Mike was equally stunned. It was a very awkward situation for all of them. And for Ross and Beth, not only was it awkward, but it was emotional.

"I…" Beth said, trying to explain.

Ross was breathing heavier and heavier with each passing second. His skinny stomach kept puffing in and out as he exhaled violently.

Moments later, before either of them could say anything, the door opened from behind. It was the guards, and they were back. When they saw Ross's condition, they started laughing.

"Hah!" one yelled. "The kid got so scared he started crying!"

"Hard to think he was killed Kip just a few hours ago," another added on.

"We'll make sure Maverick makes your process nice and slow," a third guard said to Ross in a malicious way. Ross had to use every single bit of inner strength and control to not start lashing out at the guards. If he tried fighting, he would easily get overpowered.

Ross and Mike started getting led back into their dungeon. As they were being led out, Ross turned around and gave Beth one last look, which was hate-filled and raging. After giving Beth one of the most malicious expressions he ever wore, he turned around and continued walking with the guards back into the dungeon.


	12. Bien's Memory

When Ross and Mike arrived back in the dungeon, both of them looked very glum. Bien could immediately tell that there was something wrong with them when he saw how they both looked.

"Guys, what's going on?" Bien asked as Ross and Mike got back in the dungeon. Due to it being fairly dark, Bien couldn't make out any of the other details on Ross's face, so he had no idea that Ross was a complete mess now. "Was their bathroom closed?"

Mike looked at Bien. Even though it was hard to distinguish features, Bien could see that Mike was clearly frowning.

"Ross and I saw the machine that's going to shred our memory," Mike glumly said.

Bien looked sympathetic. "Is that why you look so glum? Ross looks especially bad."

"Actually…" Mike started.

Mike told Bien the whole story about how Ross found out that Beth, the girl he had genuine feelings for when he was just six years old, was now working for Maverick and was going to be getting the machine ready to zap their memories. Mike spared the details of how Ross reacted, though. He tried to spare what was left off Ross's dignity after the episode in the room.

"Wow," Bien said. He turned his head towards Ross, who was sitting in a corner of the dungeon in a fetal position. "That must have been really rough on you," he said, trying his best to prove that he cared.

"I don't want to talk about it," Ross said coldly, not turning to either of his friends.

"Did Beth tell you how much longer it was going to be until the machine is ready?" Bien asked.

"No," Mike said. "I guess we'll find out when they find out."

Ross was sitting alone in the corner of the dungeon. He didn't want Mike or Bien to talk to him. He was so furious at how Beth ended up working for Maverick that he couldn't express it in any other way. He was furious about how he handled the shock when he first found out, but he had better things to worry about now. And yet, he couldn't keep his mind focused on those better things.

"Beth…" Ross whispered soft enough so Mike and Bien couldn't hear him. "Why?..."

The rest of the time dragged on. Mike and Bien were smart to know not to disturb Ross as he sat on the floor and sulked about what had just happened. When the time came, the guards showed up at the door to the dungeon.

"Well, kids," one of the guards said, "I hope you're valuing your final moments of having your memories, because they're going to be a thing of the past."

Mike showed no resistance. He got up and a few guards surrounded him as they led him out to the room where Beth was in.

Ross, however, was more stubborn. Three guards had to come over and forcefully pull him up and then drag him out the door of the dungeon. Bien just stood there while he watched his two friends get taken away to have their memories wiped.

The long walk down the empty hall had absolutely no mood to it at all. It felt like it was devoid of any life that had existed there for hundreds of years.

When Ross and Mike were finally led back into the room that they had been in there just a few hours before, the guards left them and locked the door behind them so Ross and Mike couldn't escape. Beth looked at Ross and Mike with a sorrowful look. Mike seemed to be feeling some of the thoughts Beth was trying to convey, but it looked like they were just bouncing off of Ross.

Too angry to look at Beth, Ross pointed his head to the floor and stared down at it, not blinking at all.

"Look, Ross," Beth said, trying to convince him of something, "I don't have a choice. I'm sorry; I don't want to wipe your memory any more than you want me to."

Ross stayed silent and didn't look up at her once.

"Ross?"

"Beth," Ross mumbled, slowly lifting his head up and looking at Beth. "I want to know why. I want to know why you're here, working for Maverick and wiping people's memories."

"Ross…" Beth said, sounding very uncomfortable.

"Beth!" Ross yelled loudly, making her jump. "Tell me!"

Beth looked at Ross and saw the fury in his eyes. She took a deep breath and turned away from him.

"It…it happened a few years ago," she said, not looking at Ross. Now _she_ was looking at the floor. "I was fourteen."

Ross and Mike had their full interest in what she was about to say. (Ross especially) Neither of them said a word, hoping Beth would start shining some light on the situation.

"When I was fourteen, I was completely miserable," Beth started. "My parents were divorced and were having fights left and right about me. I wasn't doing so well in school, and with my parents arguing over who got what, my life was terrible."

Ross really didn't like where this was going. He stood there with his arms crossed, almost like he was interrogating her. His breathing was steadily becoming more controlled.

"I was thinking about running away from home," Beth continued, still refusing to make eye contact with either one of them. "And so…I did."

Ross's eyes widened, but he still maintained the hard-core look on his face. Mike looked like he was getting very interested in Beth's story as well.

"I tried to find somewhere to hide so no one would find me after running away," Beth went on. "I had to find somewhere where no one would think to look for a runaway teenager. I eventually found a small stump inside a forest that would at least keep me dry in the rain, or that would keep me a bit warmer when it was cold out."

"You can't honestly think you'd be better living inside a tree stump than with your family," Mike interrupted.

Beth completely ignored Mike's comment and resumed her narration. "But as soon as I found the tree stump, I found that there was a white glow coming from inside of it. So, when I investigated what the white glow was, it just took me here."

"Weird," Mike said. "There was a white glow that took Ross and I here as well!"

"You think Maverick knew we were going to come down here at some point?" Ross asked, sounding very serious. "It all seems like a bizarre series of coincidences."

"I don't know," Beth confessed. "But when I got warped down here, I quickly found my way into the temple. That's where I found Maverick. When I told him of how I ended up here, he thought I had a lot of integrity and decided that I would be better off working for him."

Ross's face dropped completely. He looked angrier than someone on a talk show. "Don't tell me you actually _accepted_ that?!"

Beth looked really nervous. "It sounded like a good decision at the time."

Ross looked up at the ceiling, squeezed his eyes shut and started walking around in small circles while screaming moderately loud. He soon turned his focus back to Beth.

"I can't believe you," Ross said. "You didn't even have any problems when he told you that you'd be working by erasing people's memories?!"

"It really hasn't happened that often," Beth said, trying her best to defend herself. "In fact, it hasn't happened for a very long time."

"How long has it been?" Mike asked.

"The last one to have his memory wiped was here a few months ago. I can't remember his name, but it was a rather strange one. I think it started with a 'B'…"

Ross's eyes widened even further. He didn't think it was possible. The odds were too high against the likelihood of his suspicions actually being correct. But after seeing what had happened to Beth in the nine years since they had last seen each other, nothing seemed too hard to believe now.

"By any chance, his name wasn't 'Bien', was it?" Ross asked.

For the first time since they had been reunited, Beth smiled. "Yes, that was it!" But her excitement quickly faded. "Wait a minute…how did you know that?"

Ross and Mike looked at each other in a very uneasy way.

"Ross, do you think we should…"

"We've got to, Mike," Ross mourned. "Bien has a right to know. _That_ must be why his memory isn't going to be wiped with ours…because his already _was_ wiped."

"You know him?" Beth asked, the amount of surprise and disbelief in her voice still climbing.

"Yeah," Ross said. "He's a good friend of ours. He taught Mike and I some good skills with a rapier. He helped Mike and I fight off a few of Maverick's guards. Yeah, we know him."

Beth didn't know what to say. "I'm…sorry," she finally said.

Ross acted like he didn't even hear her say it. He just put his hands on his hips, looked down at the floor and shook his head a little bit. He then looked up and stared right at Beth's eyes.

"Beth, is it possible to replay some of the memories you zapped?" Ross asked.

"Uh…yeah," Beth said uneasily.

"Great. Can you show us what you snatched from Bien's memories?"

"Hold on a second, Ross!" Mike objected. "Those are Bien's personal memories. I don't think it'd be right for us to start watching them like they were some television show."

"Mike, I'm not watching them just to watch them," Ross said. "I want us to know what memories of Bien's were stolen so we can tell him what he's really been doing."

"Er…" Mike said, still sounding very uncertain about Ross's proposal. "Beth?"

"…fine," Beth said after a lot of thought.

Ross smiled for the first time all night as he saw Beth hop into the chair she was in the first time they had met in several years. She was now busy at the controls and was trying to get everything uploaded.

"All right, I think I got it," she said after pressing a bizarre combination of buttons on the giant machine. "Try watching the giant screen in the center of the side of the machine."

Ross and Mike looked at the large screen that they saw the first time they had been in the room. It started turning on, and the images they saw were very disturbing. It was so creepy, and neither one of them expected it.

On the screen, there was a shot of an excavation site. It actually looked pretty similar to the area around Ross's house from the present. The shot focused on a wide open place with several diggers as they were drilling a giant hole into the ground, hoping to find some treasures of the past.

"Whoa!" said a voice from the image on the screen. The voice belonged to Bien. "That machine's pretty loud. I'm sure these guys won't mind if I bust out some tunes to drown out the sound of that drill."

Suddenly, the shot on the screen started turning around like it was on a tripod that could turn 360 degrees. When it was turned around halfway, the camera started walking towards a small car. Then from behind the shot, a hand came into view and reached into the car and pulled out an iPod.

"Hey," Mike blurted out, "That's the thing that was in my pocket when we wound up back here."

It was then when Ross and Mike realized the image on screen wasn't a third-person shot of a scene going on, but was rather a first-person shot of Bien's point of view. This was obviously a memory that was sucked out of him.

The image on screen showed Bien (or at least his hands) adjusting the iPod so it was playing a Metallica song. Of course, Ross and Mike, being from the 1970s, knew nothing about what was going on.

"Didn't he say he liked listening to Metallica?" Mike asked as he turned his head towards Ross.

"I don't think so," Ross disagreed. "I think I only heard him say that the name sounded familiar. This must be why."

Ross and Mike turned their attention back to the screen in front of him. The short video that they were watching was soon playing a song Ross and Mike had never heard (it was being heard because Bien was listening to it, and this was, after all, one of his memories)

"Gee, I can't wait to get home so I can play XBOX," they heard Bien mutter under his breath. "I can't wait to try out that new fighting game!"

"What's an XBOX?" Mike asked.

"Probably something from the future," Ross deduced.

Ross and Mike continued watching the memory play out in front of them. They watched as Bien started humming the tune of the song he was listening to as he went to work over by the ditch.

"Hey, guys," Ross and Mike heard Bien say on the screen, "Break time is in twenty minutes."

"Got it, Bien," said Bien's co-workers and co-archaeologists as they continued to scavenge the deep holes that they were digging.

Bien started walking back to his car to get something from it, but the shot suddenly shifted over to a mysterious cave that was sitting by a stream.

"Hello?" Bien asked. Instantly, the music turned off from the memory video. (Bien turned it off, but he didn't look down at his iPod to do it)

The video Ross and Mike were watching on the memory zapping machine showed Bien's point of view as he continued walking to the cave that he spotted. Ross and Mike watched with curiosity as Bien got on his knees and started crawling through the cave.

The camera was shaking up and down a little now that Bien was on his hands and knees, but this _was_ his point of view, after all. He came to a dead end, but in the daylight, Ross and Mike could make out some words written on the wall in the cave. Bien apparently saw the words as well, because he tried deciphering them out loud.

"Er…I can't read these words without a flashlight," Ross and Mike heard Bien say. "Good thing I brought this with me."

The camera shifted down so Ross and Mike could clearly see Bien reaching into his pocket and pulled out a small flashlight. He clicked a button and a bright white light shot out of it. Bien aimed it at the cave walls as they became illuminated with the bright light.

Bien started reading the words out loud: _Hassa Roean Kasana Dor..._

Instantly, the cave started shaking wildly and it sounded like an avalanche was taking place inside the small cave alone. Bien started audibly gasping and getting panicked, so it wasn't long before the camera showed Bien's point of view as he tried crawling out of the cave as quickly as possible.

"Why do you think Bien never told us about this?" Ross asked Mike as they continued watching the video. "I'd think that of all things, he'd remember _this_ the most."

"Maybe part of the cave hit him on the head and erased his memory of it?" Mike suggested.

Both teenagers continued watching. They saw that the cave had calmed down, but they could hear Bien breathing heavily after just crawling out and thinking the cave was going to collapse on him. From his point of view on the screen, they could see Bien pressing his hands on the grass to keep himself up. After the longest time, Bien looked up and Ross and Mike could see what he once saw.

Bien was staring into the cave and saw a white glow coming from it. Bien let out a small "Hmm?" as he started crawling into the cave again to investigate the white light that was coming up from the cave floor. When he was right in front of the light coming up from the cold floor of the cave, it showed Bien's hand as he reached out to touch it. No sooner did he touch the light did the entire screen turn white.

Bien's screams could be heard coming from the screen as he went through the roller-coaster like passage that the time gates created whenever they were formed. After several seconds, it finally ended with a loud smash onto the ground.

Since it was from Bien's memory, it was still in first person from his point of view, but he slowly got up and looked around. He was in a completely different time period now than he was before he touched the light. The weak looking houses, the style of clothes, the giant temple…he was in the village of the people who idolized the Finis Tempi.

"Where…am I?" Ross and Mike heard Bien ask while still watching the memory.

The memory video then showed Bien running up the stairs to the temple. He tried going in, but he was stopped by two guards. It was Kline and Sandra, neither of whom was still alive.

"Halt!" Sandra said. She put her hand right in front of the camera lens. (Which means, in reality, she put it in Bien's face) "No one is allowed in here without permission from Maverick himself!"

"That's right!" Kline said off screen. "Now, be off with you."

The camera started turning away, meaning that Bien was turning around. But just as it looked like he was ready to walk away, a familiar voice called out from behind.

"Stop!"

The camera turned around and back to the temple (Meaning Bien was turning back around so he was facing the temple) and he saw Maverick standing at the top of the stairs.

"My good friend, what is your name?" Maverick asked in a friendly voice.

"Bien," Bien answered.

"Bien. Come in, Bien. Sandra. Kline. Allow our guest to enter."

"Yes sir," Kline and Sandra said simultaneously.

The video showed Bien's point of view as he started walking up the stone stairs and into the Temple of the Finis Tempi. Maverick was right in his face and tried to look as friendly as possible.

"I don't recognize you. Are you a visitor to this village?" Maverick asked Bien.

"Actually, I think I came from a different time period. I know this sounds hard to believe, but I was in a cave and saw some words. Once I said them, a white thing appeared on the cave wall, and when I touched it, it brought me here," Bien explained.

"I see…" Maverick said, sounding like he somehow understood exactly what Bien was talking about. "Well, do come in."

Maverick led Bien inside the temple and down the long halls. It showed Bien walking down into the lower level of the temple and in the same hall as the dungeon. Maverick continued leading Bien through the halls until he eventually stopped at a door and opened it for Bien. He gave Bien a pleasant smile.

"This is Beth," Maverick said. He waved his hand in the direction of a young woman who was sitting at a chair at a very large machine with very strange buttons and a large screen in the center of the machine. "She'll take care of you."

"Sure will," Beth said with a surprisingly insincere smile on her face. Then, the screen slowly started to fade to black.

"Whoa," Ross said. "So that's when you put him on the machine and took that memory from him?"

"We took more than that," Beth confessed. "We took many more memories than just that one you just saw."


	13. A Risky Alliance

Ross and Mike had just seen a video on the screen that was centered in front of the large machine that was used by Beth and Maverick to steal memories from people. However, the video they saw wasn't just any old video; it was a memory of Bien's, entirely from his perspective, about what happened to him when he wound up inside the civilization.

"Man, I don't believe it," Ross said as he bent his forefinger and placed the middle knuckle on his chin.

"Can't believe what?" Mike asked.

"Well, Bien obviously remembers that he was an archaeologist and he remembers how to fight with rapiers, so those must be some of the memories that Maverick allowed him to keep."

"So?" Mike asked.

"Well, what about the fact he was using things and talking about things that are much more technologically advanced than what we have now?" Ross asked.

"He must be from a time period after ours," Mike said. (He deduced that Bien was around some time after the 1970s, which was the time period Ross and Mike were from before they wound up in this ancient civilization)

"Precisely," Ross said. "But didn't you notice something strange when we were watching that memory?"

"What's that?"

Ross looked a little annoyed that Mike didn't seem to have paid as much attention to Bien's memory as much as he had hoped he did.

"Didn't you notice something familiar about that cave?"

"Uh…it looked like the one we went through to come here as well," Mike said.

"Exactly," Ross said, similar to the way an investigator speaks when he's putting clues together to a mystery.

"Wait a minute!" Mike yelled. "So the reason we came here in the first place is because that white portal thingy was on the floor in the cave. But Bien was the one who opened it in the first place, so if he didn't open it, then we wouldn't be here!"

"Good," Ross said, happy to see that Mike was finally catching on.

"But…but I thought you just said that Bien came from the future," Mike said.

"That's right," Ross said, nodding his head. He was slowly beginning to smile. "He had technology that is way beyond anything we had available in our time period."

"But that would mean…that would mean _we_ came from the future if we went through the same time gate as Bien and _he's_ from the future!" Mike realized.

It was becoming very complicated now. Bien was from a time period about thirty years after Ross and Mike's time period. That meant that Bien opened the time gate in the cave a few years after the turn of the new millennium. However, for Ross and Mike to go through that exact same time gate, they would have had to have done it when they were in their forties, but they weren't; they were teenagers when they went through it. But they were teenagers in the early 70s, so how could they have done something and still be teenagers about thirty-five years in the future?

"This is getting so confusing," Mike said, grabbing the sides of his head and acting like he was ready to pull his thick, dirty blonde hair out.

"I know," Ross said. "What this means is that we were 15 years old in 1971, but we were also 15 a few years after the turn of the millennium when Bien opened up the time gate and we went through it."

"How is that even possible?" Mike asked.

"I honestly don't know," Ross said.

"Oh, no!" Beth yelled, waking both boys up.

"What is it?" Ross asked.

"I was supposed to have wiped your memories clean, just like I did with Bien."

Ross put up his fists like he was ready to fight. "Beth, I don't want to have to fight you. But if that's what it takes to keep my memories in tact, then be prepared to get my fist shoved into your jaw!"

"No!" Beth insisted, shaking her head and waving her two hands side to side simultaneously with her palms facing Ross. "I'm not going to wipe your memories!"

Ross looked surprised and lowered his fists. "What _are_ you going to do?"

"I hope you guys are good actors. I'm going to escort you back out there and into the dungeon again. Several guards will ask how the mind wiping went, and just act like you don't remember a thing, got it?" Beth said, sounding very stern.

"I guess so," Mike said. "You sure it'll work?"

"It's the only thing we can do right now," Beth said.

"What do you mean 'we'?" Ross asked.

"Ross, I don't know how you did it, but you've managed to make me rethink things," Beth said.

Ross raised an eyebrow. "What are you talking about? I didn't do anything."

"I don't know what it is," Beth admitted. "But somehow, seeing you again and seeing the way you act to this and seeing your determination…it's made me really resentful of Maverick.

Ross was so surprised he could barely speak. "For real?"

"Yes," Beth said, nodding sadly. "I'm being completely serious. I want to help you, Mike, Bien and myself get back to our time periods where we belong."

Ross and Mike looked at each other with great uncertainty.

"I don't blame you for not trusting me," Beth said, "but please. I want to try to make things right again. I want to be able to return to my own time with you guys."

"I dunno, Ross," Mike said filled with suspicion. "I don't know if we should trust her."

Ross didn't say anything, but he kept a very plain look on his face. But even though it was plain, it was clearly visible that he was thinking way too hard about something. Finally, he looked up.

"I say we take her along."

Beth looked relieved when Ross decided to trust her, but Mike wasn't as certain.

"Are you certain you want to trust her, Ross?"

"She didn't wipe our memories like she was supposed to," Ross said. "Besides, with her help, maybe we can figure out why we were teenagers when we went through the time gate to get here when we were actually supposed to be in our forties."

Mike scowled, but eventually gave in. "All right, fine."

Beth looked very happy and relieved to see that they both trusted her. She looked at Mike. "By the way, Ross never told me your name."

"It's Mike," Mike said, still not completely trusting her.

"Oh. Hi, Mike," she tried to say pleasantly.

Mike quickly put his hand up with his hand up like he was going to wave hi to her, but as soon as it was up, he pulled it down. He was never one for formalities.

"Now remember, try to look like your memory was wiped," Beth said as they started walking towards the door. "When we get to the door to the dungeon, all three of us are going to punch the guard at the same time and hopefully knock him out."

"Wait, what?" Mike said, sounding as confused as ever.

"I'm going to try to get you guys out of here. And to do that, we're going to need to make sure the guards are out of the way."

"Come on, Mike," Ross said. "We can at least get some payback on these stupid guards if we get to slug them. Besides, if all three of us can attack the guard at the same time, then maybe it would work."

"All right…"

Beth opened the door to the room and gestured for Ross and Mike to go out first. As soon as they went out, the two kids tried to put on their best "stupid" look. They had no idea what they were supposed to look like if they just had their memories wiped, so they decided they'd be better off just trying to look like they were just getting back from partying all night.

With their faces hanging and pretending they had absolutely no concept of what was going on around them. Beth was pushing them to go forward some more, just to make it look a bit more convincing. When she was just a few feet away from the door, the guard smiled at her.

"So, I take it the memory wiping went well?" the guard asked Beth.

"Yes, it did," she said with a confident grin on her face.

The guard turned around and opened the door into the dungeon. He was expecting Beth to shove Ross and Mike in there, but he got something else. Instead, Beth spun him right around and when he was facing the three teenagers, they all punched him in the face as hard as they could.

The guard staggered, but was not down. But the three teenagers didn't stop. They continued pummeling him with their strongest blows until he was finally down on the ground.

When the guard was on the ground, Beth ran over and kicked him in the side of the head. That rendered the guard unconscious.

Ross and Mike ran into the dungeon while Beth kept the door open. When they ran inside, they explained everything to Bien.

"So _that's_ why you looked so upset before?" Bien asked Ross. "Because a long-lost friend of yours turned out to be working for Maverick?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Ross sharply said. "But yeah, that's it."

Mike then explained everything to Bien about how they had just seen his memory on the machine Beth was working at. He told him all about how he was archaeologist and was listening to some music and talked about playing a game on something called an XBOX. Then they told him about how they saw him go into the cave, say a bizarre incantation written on the walls of the cave and how it opened up the portal that Ross and Mike eventually went through to get to the civilization they were in.

"Strange…" Bien said softly to himself. Now _he_ seemed to be having some internal conflict. Those names you mentioned…they sound so familiar. And yet I have no memories of any of that happening. As far as I can remember, I'm an archaeologist and I've been living here for a while."

"Well, it wasn't always like that," Ross said.

"Why is Beth listening in on us?" Bien asked, casting his glance to the girl holding the dungeon door open.

Ross sharply turned around and saw that Beth was hearing every single word of the conversation.

"Bien, she's decided that she's going to help us instead of wiping our memories like she did to you," Ross glumly informed.

"Are you sure you can trust her?"

"We don't really have a choice. We're not going to get anything accomplished if we just end up lying around here the rest of our lives."

Bien looked just as uneasy as Mike first did when the idea was suggested. But they saw that Ross trusted Beth, and if he could trust her, then anyone could.

"All right," Bien said. "What are we going to do now?"

"There's something I want to show you," Beth called into the dungeon.

Ross, Mike and Bien turned towards her with great interest about what it was that Beth wanted to show them. "Come on, follow me."

Ross, Mike and Bien quickly followed Beth out the door and began following her in close pursuit. She really seemed to know where she was going, and hopefully for the three, it wasn't into a trap.

Beth finally reached the end of one of the long halls and saw that there was a giant door. It was easily sensed that there was something important behind that door. But there was a lock on it, so the door obviously couldn't be opened.

But Beth seemed to have a back up plan. She reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a key. She promptly inserted the key into the lock and it opened.

"Whoa!" Mike yelled. "Where did you get that?"

"I stole it from the guard who was standing in front of the dungeon door when we knocked him out," Beth explained, not turning to any of her companions. "Come on, let's go in."

Beth went through the open door and opened it all the way so Ross, Mike and Bien would have an easier time getting in. All of them were shocked with what they saw.

"Whoa…" Mike said breathlessly.

"Unbelievable…" Ross said.

"How is Maverick capable of such a tool?" Bien asked.

It was a giant weapon that was in the room, but it looked very similar to the kind of robot vehicle seen in sci-fi movies. It had two supported legs with several rods connecting up to higher points. There was a torso with two side arms that looked easily controllable. The head had a face that was somehow forming a twisted sneer with two giant windows for eyes.

"How did Maverick make something like _that!_" Ross yelled.

"He didn't make it alone," Beth said sadly. "He had to make it based on some very complex mathematical formulas, which aren't even around now?"

"Then how'd he get the formulas?" Bien asked.

"He had to travel to another time period to a place where math and science were dominant. He got the formulas from that sheet of paper right there."

Beth pointed to a side table that had a piece of parchment sprawled out on top of it. It looked like it had seen better days, with many rips and tears in it.

"Ross, you don't think that's…"

"Yes, Mike. It is."

Ross went over to the paper on the table and slowly started lifting it up. It had several mathematical equations on and theories written on it that looked like they would be useful when constructing the giant robotic-like weapon.

"This is…this is the paper that Maverick stole from that guy in Rome," Ross realized as he stared at it. "_That's_ why he stole it: to make this thing."

"But that doesn't explain what he wanted with all that coal from the industrial revolution that he stole," Mike said.

"Uh…I might know why he did that," Beth said.

Beth walked around to the back of the iron machine and opened up a latch in the back. In it, there was all the coal that Maverick had swiped from the factory.

"So he's using the coal as a fuel source to power this," Ross said softly. "It's kind of obvious when you think about it."

"Yeah," Mike said.

Bien suddenly looked pretty excited. "Hey, we want to stop Maverick from using this thing, right?"

"Yeah," the three teenagers said in unison.

"Then why don't we just take the coal out? No coal, no power."

"That's a good idea," Mike said. "Hope you don't mind getting your hands dirty for once, Ross."

Just as the quartet was about to start dumping all the coal out, a voice broke the silence.

"Beth! Why are these people here?"

Beth jumped and looked up. It was Maverick, and he was staring at Beth with a very suspicious glare.

"Oh, when I was trying to take them back from getting their memories wiped, they showed some resistance and started running. I ended up catching them in here," Beth tried to explain.

Maverick continued looking at her with an untrusting look. But still, it seemed like something won him over. "I thought I told the guard that I didn't want him to take the older one."

"Uh…maybe you should fire him?" Beth nervously suggested.

Maverick still looked like Beth wasn't telling him something. "Fine, then," he said. He looked at Ross, Mike and Bien. "Since all three of you showed unnecessary resistance, I think I need to impose a _further_ penalty on you."

"W…what?" Bien asked.

"All three of you are going to have _more_ of your memories erased!" he said in a threatening voice to Ross, Mike and Bien.

Saying this, Maverick snapped his fingers and an entire squad of guards came from behind him and pointed their weapons at Ross and Mike. They had no choice but to follow Maverick if they followed their lives.


	14. Changing a Life

Ross, Mike and Bien had no choice. They reluctantly followed the guards, with Maverick leading the way. Beth was just staring and watching while her friends got carried out. There's no way she would have enough time to get out all the coal from the machine by herself before Maverick noticed.

Maverick led the three into the room where there was the machine that wiped people's memories. Ross and Mike were terrified to see the machine again. Bien knew this wasn't the first time he had seen it, but he had no memory of the machine at all.

"Guards, leave us," Maverick casually ordered.

All the guards obeyed. They began draining from the room until it was just Ross, Mike, Bien and Maverick. Maverick looked at all of them with a wicked sneer.

"So, who wants to be put on the machine first?" Maverick asked.

Ross somehow tried to get all his bravery and courage out, hoping that it would stun Maverick. "Why don't you put yourself on it instead!"

Maverick looked at Ross and chuckled. "I think I'll go with the irritable one first."

Maverick grabbed Ross by the shirt and pushed him onto the machine. He promptly strapped Ross down to it and placed the strange helmet on his head. He then promptly went over to Mike and Bien and pulled a rope out of his robe. Using the rope, he tied both of them up. "Your turns will come soon enough," he threatened.

With Mike and Bien completely helpless, Maverick turned his attention back to Ross. Not taking his eyes off his prisoner, Maverick went over to the control chair that Beth was sitting at and started hitting a few buttons. He seemed most surprised when he saw something on the screen.

"Hmmm…it seems your memories have not had anything done to them. I wonder why that is?..." Maverick said.

"Maybe it's because your precious machine can't work right?" Ross said, trying to find the border from acting tough to acting stupid.

"Oh, it can work. Don't you worry about that," Maverick said. "Using your memories, I can actually distort time."

"What are you talking about?" Ross asked.

"This temple is for a being that can distort time-the Finis Tempi," Maverick explained. "When its power fuses with the memories that can be altered with this machine, it can completely change your life."

"English, please!" Ross said.

Maverick just smirked to himself and started hitting a few dials and buttons on the machine.

"Perhaps an example? Your memories tell me that you were born in 1960," Maverick said.

"And if I was?" Ross asked.

"Heh. 200 years from now," Maverick said. "But with just some power from the Finis Tempi, this machine can make you come from a distant time."

"What?" Ross asked.

Maverick hit a few buttons, and instantly, Ross felt a painful electric shock jetting into his brain from the helmet. He was flopping around, but the straps made it difficult for him to move at all. When the shocking finally stopped several seconds later, he felt like the inside of his head was smoldering.

Ross moaned in pain as Maverick continued smiling menacingly at him.

"So, perhaps I should ask you now?" Maverick asked. "What year were you born in?"

Ross tried scrambling his brain for the answer. After a lot of thinking, he came up with an answer. "1990."

Because Maverick had interfered with Ross's memories, and also after being able to use some of the mysterious power of the Finis Tempi that came from within the temple, Ross was no longer born in 1960. Instead, he was now born thirty years later, in 1990.

Ross finally realized what Maverick did, but he was completely powerless to do anything about it. He looked back at Maverick, now looking very scared.

Laughing, Maverick started talking to Ross some more. "Since you're no longer from 1960, it means your mother didn't marry the man she did a few years before you were born. Now, she married a completely different person in 1988. In 1959, your mother married someone with the last name 'Hamilton'. In 1988, I'm having her marry a man named McKane instead."

"W…what?" Ross asked.

"Oh, and would you look at that," Maverick said. "Your parents got divorced when you were two years old. You haven't had a fatherly figure to look at until your last adventure in your freshman year of high school."

Ross suddenly started remembering it all. He was no longer from 1960, and he no longer had any memories of his father between the time he was three to when he was fourteen.

"Okay, Maverick, I get it," Ross said. "Please, don't screw up my life any more than you already have."

"This is too much fun, though," Maverick said hatefully. "Seeing you flail around completely helpless as I started altering every single aspect of your life."

Ross was breathing heavily. He barely understood what was going on. All he knew was that Maverick was changing the way his life had been going.

Then, all the adventures he had of what happened after he was born in 1990 came back to him. Ross saw himself beating the school bully, Big Bad Bob, he three physically demanding tasks and freeing the school from his reign. He remembered traveling to Egypt with Mike when they accidentally wound up back there when their class was taking a field trip to a museum.

Ross remembered the battle he and Mike had when they tried to stop an alien named Zozu from annihilating Earth when they were accidentally launched into outer space when they both went to the Kennedy Space Station in Florida together.

Then came the memories of when Ross went inside Mike's body to destroy Pox, a very dangerous virus. Then he saw himself spray painting his principal's house and getting caught doing it, thusly getting suspended.

Then he saw the battle with Baron in the theme park where Ross accidentally got the power to fire a golden light from his gums from Baron, ultimately giving Ross the power to turn anything to gold. Ross never had to use that power, so he forgot all about it. After that came the images of Ross and Mike trying to blow up EVILLE while hoping to save their new friend, Mory. Ross saw the failed attempt as the EVILLE theme park detonated with Mory inside.

The memories were coming back to Ross now. He then remembered seeing that Mory made it out alive and was holding a grudge for thinking his friend didn't try to save him from he exploding theme park. The battle on the satellite with Mory and the battle in the prehistoric times…they were all becoming so clear to Ross now.

Ross saw the underground civilization of the mole people, and how they were going to execute Ross and Mike for intruding in their lair. Ross saw his pet frog, Frog, as Frog used some unknown ability to cause an explosive reaction with his saliva and mole people substance, therefore allowing Ross and Mike to escape the lair with their lives.

But the memories didn't stop there. He saw himself turning Madame Vik, a psychic who brought him great misfortune, into gold when he was confronting her in her mansion in the middle of the woods. And he was with…Frog. He was with his pet frog, Frog.

The memories continued to flow. Ross saw him battling outer space with Zozu, still attempting to destroy Earth. This time, he had his wife, Zodie. Ross saw Zodie getting blown up on the missile that was supposed to destroy earth, and he saw Zozu's helmet getting smashed when he wasn't in the space station, therefore having his entire head freeze solid.

Then Ross saw more. He saw the time when he was in the Medieval period, trying to save a kingdom from a ruler who had stolen a powerful orb and was threatening to use it to destroy everything in his past. Ross saw that the enemy's most faithful apprentice, a robotic shark, had turned against him and had beaten him.

Ross wanted the memories to stop. But they just kept coming. More and more of them.

Ross saw himself when he was struggling to stop Mr. Dawnson from detonating the nuclear warhead using the knowledge Ross had when he got an above average score on the intelligence test. Then he saw himself as he tried to stop the scientist who had brought several children's toys to life from going on a rampage and destroying everything in sight.

Then came the most awful of them all. He saw Mr. Dozzom, his school principal, as Mr. Dozzom drowned himself in the river at Camp Glaregon to save Ross, Mike, and everyone around so that the monster in the woods would have no source of life left, therefore, dying.

Then Ross saw the battle he had with Ubels and Verrat. He saw he and his father from the 1990's as they both ran for their lives through the dark streets of the town that night, struggling to stay alive. It was all becoming so clear.

Ross had just seen all the flashbacks of the adventures he didn't remember having before. At least, he only remembered the ones before his battle to stop Pox from infecting Mike. Why was that? Now, he had a recollection of every single adventure he had been on.

Wait…that would mean _Mike_ was Ross's age in at the turn of the century, meaning Mike was no longer from the 1960s, either…

Almost like Maverick was reading Mike's thoughts, he started laughing. "I have interfered with your memories now," he explained. "When you went on that trip to the moon to battle Zozu from destroying earth, it was in 1971 when you had your father who had the last name 'Hamilton". Now I have altered that a little. Anything after that journey took place after the year 2000.

So everything that happened before the battle to stop Zozu from destroying earth took place in 1971. Everything that took place after that happened in 2001 up to the present day. Ross was gradually beginning to understand it. That must mean Maverick did a similar thing with Mike.

Ross knew that when, and if, he ever got out of this situation, he would not be returning to 1976; he would be returning 30 years to the future, in 2006.

Then everything in Bien's memory made sense. Bien was also from 2006. Ross suddenly knew what an iPod was, and he knew what an XBOX was. But Mike had the iPod in his pocket before they had returned to the 1700s to stop Maverick from sending any more men. That would mean that when they got back to their present time, they were already in 2006, but when they came back in time to the 18th century to stop Maverick, they only remembered things up to 1976.

Now Ross and Mike had fully regained their memories of all their adventures after Maverick had interfered and tampered with them. It was all making sense now. It was messed up, but yet it made sense somehow.

Maverick continued chuckling when Ross was realizing in horror what was going on. But then he suddenly remembered that since he was now in the new millennium, he had the power of his golden gums.

But just as Ross was about to use them to turn Maverick into a gold statue, Maverick seemed to be able to tell what Ross was about to do. Promptly, he hit a button and more electric shocks were sent into Ross's skull by the helmet. When the shocks were gone, Ross forgot what he was trying to do.

"Heh," Maverick said. "I have just erased your memory of the golden gums, and of Frog."

"My golden gums? Frog? What are you talking about?" Ross asked.

Maverick smiled. "Precisely. Now, maybe I'll interfere with your memories one more time…"

But just as Maverick was about to disrupt Ross and Mike's lives more than he already had, he got tackled from behind. It was Beth.

"Beth!" Ross yelled when he saw her. She had his trust completely now.

After knocking Maverick to the ground, Beth got up and started unstrapping Ross from the machine. She only got one of his hands free by the time Maverick was up again.

"Beth! You traitor!" Maverick scolded coldly.

Beth turned around and started running out the room, fearing for her life. Maverick was about to chase her out until Ross used his free hand to get himself completely free from the machine. He got up and started going after Maverick.

But Maverick didn't seem to have time to deal with Ross. He turned around and said, "So, care to get destroyed by your new memories?"

Maverick opened up his hand and fired a bizarre ray from it. The ray was a light shade of cerulean, and when it struck Ross, Ross saw that he was staring into a giant, white area. He looked around, but the white abyss never ended. It finally cleared, and Ross found himself in a room that seemed to have several controls.

Looking up, he saw a giant space creature there. The alien had six bright yellow eyes and two rows of razor sharp teeth. It looked very similar to a human, except for the taller appearance, several claws on each hand and foot, and the green scaly body.

"Zozu!" Ross yelled, realizing where he saw. He was in the space shuttle that he and Mike were in when Zozu kidnapped them both and took them to his planet.

Zozu started trying to claw at Ross's face, but Ross fought back. He started throwing several punches at Zozu.

Zozu made his biggest mistake when he tried slashing at Ross. Ross ducked out of the way, and instead Zozu's claws struck an electric cord. Instantly, Zozu started feeling several currents of electricity pulse through his alien veins.

The area Ross was in started turning white like before, and when Ross could see what was in front of him this time, he was in a completely different setting. He was once again in a control room, but he was piloting something. Around him was a place that looked very red with very fragile walls. In front of the vehicle he was flying was a giant bug. The bug had a purple body and it had giant green eyes. Ross knew where he was: he was piloting his robot inside Mike's body and was battling Pox, the virus that was making Mike sick.

Ross immediately started flying his robot around the best he could, but he didn't remember how to fly it too well. Pox, on the other hand, was fighting very hard and was moving about very quickly.

Ross tried hitting a button on the robot, and a launch of some orange substance fired out from one of the cannons on the outside of the robot. It hit Pox dead-on, and Pox started screaming in agony. He slowly started dissolving, and in a matter of seconds, he was gone.

"_Oh yeah," _Ross thought to himself. _"I defeated Pox by spraying him with orange juice."_

The scene switched with the pure white transition again. Ross saw he was now in a deserted amusement park, and right in front of him was a monster that resembled the Incredible Hulk, except he looked much smaller. It was Baron.

Ross started running for his life from the giant beast, and just as the monster was about to grab him and crush him, Ross grit his teeth and a yellow light shot out from his gums. It hit Baron in the chest, and it immediately turned him to a gold statue.

That's when Ross realized what was going on. _"Maverick is sending me back to every single adventure I've been on! He's making me fight all the enemies I encountered on those adventures again…_

Ross's suspicions proved correct. The next thing he knew, he was watching Mike hold a plastic gun to a guy's head. It was Jim, the scientist who had created Baron and was desperate for revenge on Ross for killing him.

Ross saw that Mike had pulled the trigger on the gun. It looked like a squirt gun, but it really shot out a small charge that could shut down an entire person's body on contact. With Jim out of the way, Ross and Mike ran out of the exploding building they were in. But both of them were devastated when the building exploded and Mory, their new friend, didn't make it out.

There was another white flash, and Ross was alone on top of a giant satellite that was very high above the ground. And standing only a few yards away from him on the satellite was Mory.

Mory's face was scarred and his bleached white hair was blowing in the wind as he started trying to knock Ross of the satellite and to the ground hundreds of feet below.

Just as Mory was about to hit him, Ross put out his hands and stopped Mory from ramming him. All he had to do was spin Mory around once and then shove him. Mory lost his balance and fell to the ground below.

Once again, the white abyss appeared after Mory was defeated. Ross then saw he was in the middle of an execution with several hundreds of people who looked part-human and part-mole were screaming at him.

Ross saw that the king of the mole people had just had his head cut off in a guillotine, and the queen of the mole people was chasing him out of their lair. Ross started running from the furious queen, and when he turned to his side, he saw a very strange looking frog spit at the queen.

The spit collided with something in mid air and caused a giant explosion. Ross started running from the explosion while the mole people queen got engulfed in the fires of it.

After the next white flash, Ross was in a dark and brooding mansion. He was in a room with a woman who was looking very scared of him. Ross recognized her.

"Madame Vik," Ross mumbled under his breath.


	15. Ultimate Sacrifice

Ross saw that he was now back in Madame Vik's mansion in the middle of the forest. She looked terrified of him for some reason, which was a good feeling to Ross. Then, somehow, he knew to grit his teeth again. When he did so, he saw that a golden light shot from the inside of his mouth again.

When it hit Madame Vik, she turned solid gold.

The white abyss appeared in front of Ross again, and as always, it disappeared after only a few seconds. He was getting really tired of having to fight his old enemies over and over again.

When the abyss was gone, Ross saw he was in outer space. He was wearing a space suit and had a space creature coming right at him.

Ross immediately remembered who it was. It was Zodie, Zozu's wife. Ross then saw to his horror that he was on a missile and steering it straight towards an asteroid so that it would hit the rock instead of the earth and destroying it. In other words, Ross was about to commit suicide to save the world.

Ross jumped off of the missile just as Zodie was about to stop him from running it into an asteroid. As a result, Zodie was on the missile when it exploded on the asteroid, ultimately getting killed in the explosion.

Ross turned around, and he saw that Zozu was out of the space station and was firing laser blasts at Ross, trying to kill him for killing Zodie and foiling his plans to destroy earth again.

Ross fired a laser blast from his space weapon and hit Zozu's helmet with it. The glass part of the helmet shattered, exposing Zozu's head. Zozu's head instantly froze solid, and Ross watched as Zozu's lifeless body began floating into outer space.

After seeing the white abyss again, Ross saw that he was in a secret lair for nuclear testing. And Mr. Dawnson, the nuclear physicist, was right below Ross on a platform and ready to tie Ross up so he couldn't interfere with the warhead being detonated.

Thinking quickly, Ross saw the warhead in front of him and kicked it, causing it to fall off the platform and right on top of Mr. Dawnson, crushing him.

After defeating Mr. Dawnson, the white abyss appeared in front of Ross again. When Ross could see what was around him again, he saw he was on top of a building in the middle of the night. And standing right next to him was Dennis, Ross's father now. And hovering in the air right over them was Ubels, a phantom who Ross had accidentally set free when he got into his new school.

In Ross's hands, he saw he was holding a gun that looked like a mini-bazooka. It was the Ray of Light, the weapon Ross had created for him to fight back the ghosts in his school.

Aiming, Ross fired the Ray of Light and hit Ubels right in the stomach with it. The blast went right trough Ubels, and soon, Ubels began vaporizing.

The white abyss cleared, and Ross hoped that would be the last one, mostly because that was the last adventure he had been on. And indeed it was. When the abyss cleared, he found himself back in the room he was in before Maverick had literally blasted him to the past. Bien and Mike were still tied up, and Beth was tied up with them. However, the giant weapon Maverick had created was gone, and Maverick was gone with it.

"Ross!" Mike yelled. "Where were you?" Mike yelled.

"Mike, you're not going to believe this," Ross said. "Maverick actually sent be back and made me fight all of our enemies that we've had to beat on our previous adventures."

"What?" Mike asked. "You mean like Baron and Mory and Zozu and all those guys?"

"And a lot more of them," Ross said. "I'm lucky to be alive after having to take all those jerks on again."

Ross looked around and finally realized what it meant now that the robotic weapon and Maverick were gone. Yet still, Ross still had to ask.

"Where's Maverick and the weapon?"

"Maverick got in the weapon and left in it," Beth said, sounding really scared about what's going on. "He's going around the village and probably destroying everything in his path!"

Ross covered his eyes in his hand and shook his head. He couldn't believe how deadly Maverick was turning out to be. This was _not_ what Ross was expecting from a monk.

"By the way," Mike said, "I think I finally figured out why this all started."

Ross looked at Mike curiously. "What do you mean?"

"Remember how Maverick said that this happened all because we broke a stick and he claimed that was "interfering" with the past?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"When Maverick started taking that giant robot-like thingy for a ride, I noticed something that was keeping the thighs of the robot from separating from the calves. The two parts were connected by several wooden rods."

Ross couldn't believe it. "So you're saying the wood that we found in the woods when you saw your camping trip was actually something Maverick was using to build this? No wonder he was so angry; we broke something that was part of this giant thing that he was building."

"Yeah," Mike said.

"We shouldn't worry about that now," Bien said. "We've got to stop Maverick before he does anything too dangerous with that."

"Well, what are we supposed to do?" Mike asked. "It looks like we're going to have to destroy that thing from the inside, and there's no way we're going to get into it if it's moving like that. We'll get crushed!"

"Grrr…" Ross said. "We're going to have to find some way to get it to stop moving."

"How are we going to do that?" Bien asked, trying to shine some common sense on the two teenagers. "We've got absolutely nothing that will cause that thing to stop or even slow down."

"Or maybe there is," Beth said, looking like she was just coming to a realization.

Ross, Mike and Bien turned to her.

"Really?" Mike asked. "What's that?"

"Maverick may be directly controlling that machine out there, but it's detecting radio waves that can help it sense what Maverick is doing in side this temple somelace," Beth explained. "All we have to do is destroy the temple, and that should stop sending the radio waves out to the machine."

Mike stammered before finally saying, "Destroy the temple?! How are we going to do that?"

"We're not," Beth said glumly. "_I _am."

"What can you do?" Bien asked.

"If I hook myself up to that memory machine and dump all my memories in at once, it should be too much for the computer to handle," Beth said. "The result should cause the memory machine to explode."

"_Explode_?!" Ross yelled. "Won't that kill you if you're on this thing when it blows up?!"

"Duh," Beth says.

"No way!" Mike yelled. "There's gotta be some other way."

"There isn't," Beth said, trying to put on her bravest look.

"Come on, Beth," Ross said. "You can't honestly go and blow yourself up just to stop that robot thing."

"Ross!" Bien yelled, grabbing Ross by the shoulders and spinning him around so they were staring face to face. "Beth said she's willing to do it. She's willing to make that sacrifice."

"But Bien…"

"Ross!" Bien snapped again, only louder this time. "I may not remember much when I was an archaeologist, but I do remember a few things. I remember the times when my comrades would get killed in their work, whether in a digging accident or an attack by bandits or anything. They died, and it was very hard to get over it. But accepting death is part of life."

"Bien, you can't really think that's going to make it better or easier," Ross whined.

"Of course it's not going to make it easier," Bien said. "Accepting death is never easy. But it's a part of life, and you need to deal with it."

Ross had no idea what to say. Bien gradually lifted his hands off of Ross's shoulders. As Bien took his hands off his shoulders, Ross turned back to Beth.

"Beth…"

"Ross, don't worry about me!" she yelled. "If you don't want to stop Maverick, then I won't do this. But if you _do_, get out there!"

"But…"

"Come on, Ross," Mike said, not sounding like he was objecting to Beth's plan at all.

Ross didn't have much choice. Yes, he wanted to stop Maverick, but there had to be some way to do it besides Beth sacrificing herself.

Beth hopped in the chair and started turning the machine on. She started hitting an assortment of buttons to get all the settings right.

Mike and Bien were running out of the room, but Ross stayed behind and watched as Beth continued hooking herself up to the machine. When she was fully in, Beth looked and was unhappy to see Ross was still there.

"Go!" she commanded.

Ross didn't hesitate knowing another moment. Knowing that this was officially the last time he'd be seeing Beth, he ran out of the room and down the long hall of the temple and out the front door. He ran outside and saw that the giant robot-like machine was on the loose, and Maverick was piloting it.

Ross stared in complete horror as Maverick continued going through the entire village and destroying everything in his path with it. Was this payback for something? Was Maverick really doing this just to show how powerful he was capable of being?

Meanwhile, in the room with the memory machine, Beth was dumping every single thing in her memory into the machine. She hoped her overload plan would work.

All the memories of her life flashed, knowing that each passing memory was another instant closer to death. The last thing she saw was an image of Ross disappearing from her mind.

"_Good-bye, Ross…"_

Outside, Ross, Mike and Bien were watching the giant machine as Maverick continued making it stomp all the houses and all the obstructions in its path.

Then, from behind, a loud explosion was heard. Ross jumped and turned around. A giant fireball burst from the room Beth was in, completely destroying that part of the temple of the Finis Tempi.

"Beth…" Ross said. He knew there was no way she could have survived that explosion.

But just as Beth predicted, Ross turned around, and the machine stopped dead in its tracks. It was now stalling, and before long, it was completely still.

"Beth was right!" Bien yelled. "Let's not have her sacrifice go to waste!"

"Right," Ross said.

That instant, the three of them started running towards the giant machine and started trying to figure out a way to get Maverick out there and destroy the machine.

"Look!" Bien yelled, pointing to a small latch on the underside between the machine's legs. "It looks like there's a door there. One of us has to climb up there and try to open it."

"Have Ross do it," Mike said. "If he can climb a statue, he should be able to climb up that."

Ross didn't say anything. He hopped onto the leg of the machine and started trying his best to climb up it without losing his grip and falling.

"_Keep breathing…keep breathing…keep breathing and don't look down,_" Ross kept telling himself as he climbed up the leg.

He went higher and higher, and from self-pressure, he found it much harder to keep a firm grasp on the cold metal. He kept worrying that he would slip and fall to the ground below and be too hurt to fight.

When Ross finally was as high up as he could get on the machine's leg, he reached out and tried to punch the part that looked like it could break open. After smashing it with the side of his fist a few times, it finally opened. The latch opened up and a long, metal staircase came down with it.

_So THAT'S how Maverick designed this,_ Ross thought to himself. _He must have had a remote control or something like that to cause this latch to open so he wouldn't have to climb up the leg every single time._

Ross climbed down, and when he was back on the ground, he was greeted by Mike and Bien.

"Great work, Ross!" Mike said, giving Ross a few hard pats on the back.

"It's not over," Bien said. "We've got to climb up there and stop Maverick from causing any more destruction."

"Right," Ross said. "Let's go."

Ross, Mike and Bien started running up the metal flight of stairs. The stairs were fairly wide and made loud clanking sounds whenever anything came into contact with them.

Then, a nasty surprise found the three friends on the stairs. Right in front of them, two shadows appeared. One shadow looked exactly like Pox, except it was completely black, except for the eyes, which were a shade of gray.

Right next to Pox was a shadow of Zozu. Zozu looked exactly the same, except his eyes was also gray, as were his claws and teeth.

The shadows of Ross's deceased enemies started closing in on Ross, Mike and Bien, and none of them had expected the attack.

Ross started by running over to Shadow Pox and threw a punch right into his face. Shadow Pox got knocked backwards and onto the metal railing. Ross took this opportunity to quickly start bashing his foot on top of Shadow Pox's face.

When it looked like Shadow Pox was about to be finished, Shadow Zozu started sneaking up behind Ross and got its sharp claws ready to attack. But just as it was about slice Ross open from behind with those claws, Mike and Bien grabbed Shadow Zozu from behind and pulled it backwards, causing it to fall back-flat on the metal stairs.

When Shadow Zozu was lying flat on the stairs, Mike and Bien went over to its feet and pushed forward, causing Shadow Zozu to started falling backwards down the long metal stairs, making loud grunting noises as it fell.

When Shadow Zozu landed on the ground at the bottom of the stairs, it moaned in pain. Then, it slowly started disappearing into thin air.

Meanwhile, Ross was having considerably good luck taking care of Shadow Pox. He kept punching Shadow Pox over and over and over.

After punching Shadow Pox a few more times, Shadow Pox finally started hissing loudly. He started disintegrating like he did when Ross defeated him years before, but now, the black that was making him up was vaporizing into the air as well.

Before long, Shadow Pox and Shadow Zozu were gone.

"Yeah!" Mike said.

"Mike, Bien, those were shadows of my dead enemies," Ross said, turning to both of them. "Maverick must be doing this."

"You mean there might be more of them?" Bien asked.

"It's possible," Ross said. "Now we've gotta get a move on. Maverick is still inside this thing."


	16. Confrontation in the Temple

Hurrying inside the giant machine, Ross, Mike and Bien were soon inside the torso. It looked very plain with metal walls for siding and a concrete floor. The only thing in the room was a staircase in the corner that led upward, where Maverick supposedly was.

But as Ross, Mike and Bien walked in, they got another surprise. Just as Ross predicted, there were more shadows formed by Maverick waiting for them.

Forming right in front of their eyes from black mist was the shadow of a kid who looked about the same age as Ross and Mike. There were visible scars on his face, but other than that, he looked very plain. It was Mory, who Ross hadn't seen for over four years. All of Mory's clothes were black, but his skin and anything else was a shade of gray.

The one next to him was a shadow of a woman who looked like she was showing her age. She had puffy black hair and large, circular earrings and long fingernails. Like Mory, her clothes were black, but everything else was a dark shade of gray on her. It was a shadow of Madame Vik.

The third and final shadow was one that resembled an already ghostly figure. He had very human-like features, except for that his eyes were much wider than they would be on a human. He was completely black except for his eyes, which were a bright shade of gray. This was a shadow of Ubels, Ross's main enemy in his last adventure (who was already a ghost).

"Uh…how about we all take one?" Ross suggested when the three shadows started closing in on them.

"I'll take the weird woman," Mike said, heading over to the shadow of Madame Vik.

"I'll take the ghost," Bien said, heading over to fight the shadow of Ubels.

"Guess that leaves Mory to me," Ross said, heading over to Shadow Mory.

When Ross started battling Shadow Mory, Shadow Mory started by lunging for Ross and hoping to tackle him to the ground.

Ross jumped out of the way just in time and Shadow Mory landed flat on the ground. Ross immediately pulled Shadow Mory up by the back of his shirt and started punching him in the head over and over. Shadow Mory eventually started fighting back and when Ross wasn't expecting it, Shadow Mory rammed his fist into Ross's stomach.

Ross fell onto the ground with the wind knocked right out of him. Gritting his teeth, Shadow Mory started grabbed Ross's head and was about to try to snap his neck out of position.

A split second before that, though, Ross grabbed one of Dark Mory's ankles and pulled him to the ground. Dark Mory fell on the ground with a hard thud. Ross sprung up and then grabbed Dark Mory's head, and then snapped it out of position.

Dark Mory slouched onto the ground and started slowly disappearing. Ross wasn't affected by this, though, because he hadn't really killed anyone. The real Mory had been dead for over four years, after all.

Meanwhile, Mike was busy fighting Shadow Madame Vik.

Madame Vik wasn't really a good fighter, so neither was her Shadow. All Mike had to do to defeat Shadow Vik was to slam her in the face with his fist several times over. Once that was done, Shadow Vik was already in a much weakened state.

Taking advantage of this weakness, Mike dragged Shadow Vik over to the latch that they had just climbed up in. With one forceful shove, Mike pushed Shadow Vik out of the machine and she went tumbling down the metal stairs, quickly and painfully.

When she reached the bottom, Shadow Vik slowly started disintegrating, just like the other Shadows before her.

That just left Bien to take care of Shadow Ubels. Shadow Ubels was the toughest of all, because he actually had several attacks that would prove very useful.

Shadow Ubels actually got the first hit when he stuck his fingers right into Bien's chest. Since Shadow Ubels was a ghost to begin with, he still had all of his ghostly abilities.

Bien screamed in pain as Shadow Ubels continued performing some sort of attack as his hands passed right through Bien. After several seconds, Shadow Ubels pulled his hands out.

Bien was breathing heavily as he tried to recover from that last attack. When he looked up, he saw that Shadow Ubels was doing something else. In a quick flash of darkness, Shadow Ubels had transformed into an exact copy of Bien, except he still had the black and gray shades that all Shadows did.

Bien was shocked at that ability, but he didn't have time to stammer because of it. If he wanted to survive, he would have to keep fighting very quickly. And so he did, firing punch after punch after punch.

Shadow Ubels was as crafty as he his living counterpart was before Ross blasted him, though. He was able to move incredibly fast, and as a result, Bien couldn't land a single hit on him.

"Bien looks like he's in trouble," Mike said wearily to Ross.

"I know," Ross said. "Come on, there's no way that Ubels clone can take on three people at once."

Ross and Mike ran over to Ubels and started surrounding him. Shadow Ubels looked around and hissed angrily when he saw that he was surrounded, and not knowing who to take on first or thinking about who would be the most dangerous, Shadow Ubels instead pushed himself out from between his three opponents.

"Not so fast!" Bien said, jumping in front of Shadow Ubels when he tried to make a getaway.

"You're not going anywhere!" Mike yelled.

Ross looked at Mike and Bien and gave them all a signal to punch Shadow Ubels. When he counted down from three with his fingers, all three of them balled their hands into a fist and smashed it right into Shadow Ubels's face.

Shadow Ubels hissed in pain, and slowly he started disappearing like the other Shadows. In a matter of seconds, he was completely gone. The room was quiet then, with only Ross, Mike and Bien's breathing able to be heard.

"Man, those black things were much easier to beat than their real versions were," Ross said, slightly out of breath. "I mean, I needed to use a blaster or something like that to destroy Ubels about a year and a half ago."

"We can hear your stories later!" Bien said sharply, cutting Ross off. "We've still got Maverick to take care of."

With Bien leading the way, the three friends ran to the staircase in the corner of the room and began climbing it. The spiral metal staircase was a little cramped, but the trio had to do their best to ignore it and go as quickly as they could.

At the foot of the stairs was a large metal door. There was no doubt in Ross's mind what lay beyond it.

"Maverick must be behind that door," Ross said, gulping. He turned to his two friends. "This is it. There's no going back after this. You guys ready?"

"Come on, Ross," Mike said. "We've just killed a bunch of black shadow versions of some of the things we had to fight years ago, we're inside a robot thing in the late eighteenth century with an archaeologist who lost his memory, and a friend from your child hood just committed suicide to help you defeat the guy she sided with, and now both your life and my life are screwed up because of what Maverick did to you on that machine. Don't go making it any more dramatic."

Ross scowled. He took the side of his fist and started rapidly banging on the door with it. "Hey! Maverick! We know you're in there, and we just creamed those shadow things you sent out at us! Open up the door and we won't hurt you!"

There was the sound of glass shattering coming from behind the door, and then there was silence. Ross, Mike and Bien listened for a while. There was nothing to be heard after that.

Without even saying anything to either of his friends, Ross kicked the door open. He and his two friends were stunned at what they saw.

What was in front of them was no doubt the room Maverick was operating the machine from. There was a solid wooden chair sitting behind an entire panel of buttons and joysticks. There was a very large window in front of the control panel, and it was smashed open.

"He didn't jump out?!" Mike exclaimed. "We're, like, forty feet in the air. How could an old geezer like Maverick survive that fall?"

"I think I see how," Bien said.

Ross and Mike went over to Bien, who was now standing right in front of the smashed window. Leading down from the smashed window was an inflatable slide that was extending all the way to the ground.

"No way," Mike whined. "Maverick had an emergency slide equipped? Maybe he was anticipating that two teenagers and some archaeologist were going to come and stop him."

"Come on, Mike," Ross said. "We've gotta find him. He can't be too far away."

"Look!" Bien yelled, pointing to somewhere on the ground.

Ross and Mike looked where Bien was pointing, and they saw he was pointing to the temple of the Finis Tempi. And Maverick was running up the stairs and inside it.

"We've got to chase after him," Ross yelled.

All three of them jumped on the emergency slide and started shooting down it. The ride was surprisingly smooth, but in just a few seconds, it was over. All three of them were back on the ground and were running right for the temple.

As soon as Ross put his foot on the first step of the stone stairs leading up into the temple of the Finis Tempi, something just went off in his mind that triggered a sense.

"_This is it,"_ Ross thought to himself. _"When we find Maverick in this temple, a fight is going to break out and it'll be the end. Something is going to happen now."_

When the three friends ran inside the temple, they saw the entire west side of it was blown to bits due to the explosion Beth created when she dumped all her memories into the machine, causing to overload and explode.

Since the west part was completely destroyed, that would only give Maverick the option of either heading east or straight. Ross and Mike deduced that he'd try to get as deep into the temple as possible, therefore, going straight would be the logical choice.

They reached the center of the temple in just a few short moments. The only thing that was there was a wide empty space with a pedestal in the center. It was that pedestal where Ross and Mike were when Maverick teleported them to the past for the first time. And standing right behind the pedestal was Maverick.

"Maverick!" Mike yelled.

Maverick scowled and seemed barely aware of the fact that he was trapped now.

"Maverick, listen," Ross said, "we don't have to fight. We just wanted to stop you from completely destroying this town with that thing you created."

Maverick started snickering. "Then how am I supposed to show my power?" Maverick asked.

"What?"

"I need to prove to everyone that if you need to conquer something, then time is the way to do it. Some say it's knowledge that conquers all; some say it's strength; they're both wrong. It's time."

"You're crazy. You know that, don't you?" Mike asked.

"You're not proving anything other than that you're a jerk who wants everyone to be afraid of him," Bien said.

Maverick was completely silent. Ross soon got irritated by the silence.

"What? No apology?" Ross snapped. "You tried to kill me. You tried to kill Mike. You tried to kill Bien. Because of you, Beth is dead. You've taken the process of time travel and used it to create a weapon that you're only trying to use to make people afraid of you."

Maverick put up both of his hands like he was some sort of martial artist. "Don't misjudge me," he warned.

"So, you want to fight, huh?" Ross said. "I've tried talking to you, Maverick. But if you're only going to listen to my fists, then fine!"

Ross immediately put up his two fists in a fighting stance, and Mike and Bien followed by doing the same.

Maverick stared at his three enemies before the necklace around his neck (the one Ross was somehow wearing the day this entire mess got started) started glowing a pale cerulean color again. Somehow, Maverick looked like he had just gained a lot more power, and the blue glow started clouding around his fists.

"Get ready," Ross yelled as Maverick started approaching. "Here he comes!"

Maverick suddenly lunged at the three friends with the blue glow around his hands growing increasingly violent with each passing second. He was soon taking savage swipes at anyone who was close to him.

"This guy's insane!" Mike yelled, backing away. "Where'd he get all this from?"

"Impressed now?!" Maverick yelled as he ran over to Mike.

Maverick put his two hands together and started forming a giant bright blue ball in them. He got ready to launch it at Ross and Mike simultaneously until Bien jumped Maverick from behind and tackled him.

Maverick fell to the ground and the blue ball of energy flew out of his hands. It passed by Ross and Mike's head and out of Maverick's control, just barely missing the two teenagers.

Ross and Mike split up and started heading at Maverick from two different directions while he was still on the ground. They ran over to him and started kicking him as hard as they could, hoping that they were injuring Maverick too much to have him get up.

But Maverick suddenly started to glow the strange cerulean blue all over him. It was the same blue that came from his necklace. When the blue was all over his body, he suddenly shot up and sent massive blue shockwaves throughout the entire room.

The shockwaves sent Ross, Mike and Bien flying backwards and into the walls very hard. All three of them started moaning as Maverick got up. He was still glowing the shade of blue that he was right before he created that seismic wave. However, he also looked like he was getting a bit more exhausted.

Mike and Bien jumped up at the same time as Ross still tried to recover his strength from the blow. (it was very hard to recover from getting slammed into a stone wall)

The two of them started charging towards Maverick, and, without warning, both of them slugged him hard in the stomach. Maverick jumped back, but was still in pain from the hits.

Mike and Bien were tired, but they knew they had to keep pushing themselves. Otherwise, Maverick would walk all over them.

Ross, meanwhile, was still struggling to get up. However, he was in excruciating pain from the knock against the wall. Then, out of nowhere, a small twinkling sound was heard coming from Ross's pocket.

"Huh?" Ross mumbled as he passed his glance towards his pocket. "What was that?"

Before Ross had time to investigate what the mysterious sound was, a giant beam of blue light shot right passed his head and barely missed him. It woke him up, and he saw Maverick was aiming his blue energy at him.

Mike and Bien were both on the ground and were kneeling, so Ross assumed Maverick had hurt both of them pretty bad while Ross was thinking about what the odd sound he heard coming from his pocket was.

Ross jumped up just as Maverick was about to fire another blast at him. Ross quickly started dodging every single ray of energy Maverick was sending at him, but it wasn't easy.

After firing several rays and missing every single time, Maverick fell on one of his knees as well and started panting. He must have been using up a lot of some unknown power if he was able to fire energy like that.

While Maverick was in his weakened state, Ross took advantage of it. He ran over to Maverick and grabbed him by the front of his brown cloak. He started firing a series of rapid punches to Maverick's face and was relentless.

Maverick had no control and could do nothing to stop Ross as he continued beating away at him.

Finally, Ross stopped, but he didn't end his attack there. He turned Maverick's head and started slamming his face into the stone wall of the temple, over and over.

Mike and Bien were finally getting back up again and saw that Ross was going insane and was beating the life out of Maverick. They thought he was going too far now.

"Ross! Stop!" Bien yelled.

He and Mike ran over to Ross and both of them started holding them back. It took both of their full strength in order to stop their raging friend.

Ross was breathing heavily when he finally stopped (only because Mike and Bien had gotten a hold of him)

Ross then looked at Maverick's face. There was blood all over it, and his stare was lifeless. The blue glow around Maverick had completely vanished and he seemed more like a limp rag doll now.

Ross slowly let Maverick go. Maverick's body fell onto the stone floor and lay there absolutely motionless and lifeless.

"W…what?" Ross choked out. It was the only thing he could say.

"It's okay, Ross," Bien said calmly yet sadly. "We're finally finished now."

"Yeah," Mike said. "You really Maverick a good butt-whooping. I never knew you had it in ya."

Ross was stammering so much and he could barely believe what he had just done. The only thing more disbelieving than what he had done to Maverick was the result of his actions.

It was all over. Maverick was dead.


	17. The End of Time

There was no sound for a while. Ross couldn't believe that the fight that was determining it all had just ended. And the even less believable part about it was the way that it ended. He couldn't believe he had just released his inner animal like that so carelessly.

"Ross, it's okay," Bien said when he saw how distraught Ross was about what he had just done.

Ross was breathing heavily, and it looked like he was just going to fall to the ground. In fact, he _wanted_ to collapse. His body wanted to collapse. However, he fought the urge and turned back to his friends. Ross's face was one of confusion, devastation and self-disappointment.

"I went way too far," Ross said. "I shouldn't have done that."

"Hey, it's all right," Bien said, smiling.

"Yeah," Mike said, starting to smile as well. "You beat the bad guy. That's what our objective was, right?"

"Yeah, I guess," Ross stammered.

"Great," Bien said. "Then we can all leave this place and go back to my house and have a victory dinner."

"Sounds good," Mike said with a wide smile.

"I guess," Ross said pretty glumly.

The three of them walked out of the destroyed room with thoughts of the previous battle still racing through their mind. But that peace of mind was short lived. All of them suddenly heard a loud rumbling sound coming from behind.

"W…what's going on?" Bien asked.

The three friends turned around and they saw that Maverick was back on his feet And not only that, but he created another portal and was hopping into it.

"Hey!" Ross yelled, still fired up from the fight. He started charging to the portal and tried to get in it before it closed.

"Ross! Wait up!" Mike yelled running after Ross into the portal.

Bien growled at the carelessness of his two friends and started running after them. But right before Bien was about to run into the portal, it closed on him, sealing him out. Bien was all alone in the temple of the Finis Tempi now. Ross and Mike were gone after following Maverick into the portal.

"Ross…Mike…" he slowly moaned.

Ross and Mike were in a state of disbelief. They were both staring wide-eyed at what was in front of them. Neither one of them could believe it.

Both of them were standing in the pool yard that Ross was in when he had beaten Big Bad Bob in three physically athletic events. There was the large, rectangular pool in the center of the yard and everything was just the way Ross remembered it. The only difference was that there was absolutely no color. The water, the pool yard itself, the grass, the sky, the sun…everything was a shade of gray. And there was absolutely no life at all in the entire area. Not even Ross and Mike felt as if they contributed anything living to the area.

"Is this where I defeated Big Bad Bob almost five years ago?" Ross asked as he looked at the shadow location in front of him.

"Ross, look…" Mike said gently and softly.

Right up ahead of the pool yard was another white portal. It blended in so well with the gray surroundings.

Ross and Mike headed towards the portal, and when they passed into it, they found themselves in a place that was just like the pool yard. Except this time, it was the pyramids of ancient Egypt around them. Everything was still void of any life and it nothing except gray all around. Just the fact that it was so gray and any signs of life were absent caused a depressing sensation in both kids.

Right in front of them was another portal. They passed through it, and it took them to the inside of the rocket ship they were in when they accidentally got sent to Mars on their third adventure. Like before, it was just shades of gray and no life signs at all.

Only a few yards in front of them was another portal. That one took them to a gray, lifeless copy of the inside of Mike's body where Ross battled Pox. The portal after that led to the yard of Mr. Dozzom's house, which he had spray painted in order to get what he considered "revenge".

Passing through the portal leading from there took Ross and Mike to the carnival where he had battled Baron. There was still only gray in place of all the color and no signs of life at all. The lack of life and all the gray made it very depressing. When the two saw the next portal, they crossed it.

The portal took them to the EVILLE theme park building that Ross blew up when he was trying to stop Jim from doing anything drastic to him. The portal after that led to the top of a giant satellite-the same one Ross battled his former friend, Mory, on.

The proceeding portal took Ross and Mike to the prehistoric jungle where Mory finally got out of their hair when he got eaten by a dinosaur. The next portal Ross and Mike passed through took them to the inside of the mole people's lair.

The dirt in the mole people's lair was gray, as was everything else in the portals Ross and Mike passed through. All the mole people were gone, as if they had been exterminated. It just seemed like an empty dirt cavern.

When Ross and Mike stepped through the next portal that was only a few yards in front of them again, they found themselves in a giant, empty room. It was the room Ross had defeated Madame Vik in early on in his seventh grade year. The wooden floors and walls were all gray and lifeless. It was so creepy.

Ross and Mike went through the portal and were soon standing in the space station where Ross had to confront Zozu and Zodie for the last time. The space station seemed even more gray, dreary and lifeless than it did before.

After going through the next portal, Ross and Mike were in the nuclear testing lair where Mr. Dawnson was about to launch a nuclear weapon that Ross had inadvertently helped him create. Being in the room again brought shivers down Ross's spine that reminded him of the battle.

But there was still another portal. When Ross and Mike went through it, they were in the ancient medieval kingdom where they got themselves wrapped up in a war. This was especially disturbing, because it was normally lively and flourishing. But now, it was all just gray and there were no signs of any people, whether they were peasants or royal soldiers. Everyone was completely gone.

The next portal that Ross and Mike took them through led to a science lab where Ross and Mike had to stop all the toys that were brought to life by the mad scientist. The portal in front of them was open.

Ross and Mike walked through it, and it took them to the deep woods in Camp Glaregon. Ross wanted to forget these woods as soon as possible, but it didn't look like that was happening. The woods were gray, but Glaregon and any signs of the campers were gone. The screens on the tree were still there, though, showing the faces of all the holders of the orbs. And this time, Mr. Dozzom's line read EDGAR B. DOZZOM: 1946-2004. This just took even more life away, even though there was none to begin with.

The portal in the woods teleported Ross and Mike to the dark night streets where Ross confronted Ubels. The streets were brighter since the gray was a lighter shade, but it still took more life away.

"These portals are getting so annoying," Mike said. "Where are they even taking us?"

"I don't know," Ross said. "But this should be the last one. Hmmm…I wonder if there's any symbolism in seeing lifeless, gray versions of the most important places in our last adventures?"

Mike shrugged and the two of them walked through the next portal. They hoped it was the last one, but it wasn't. Now, both of them were in a gray version of the Temple of the Finis Tempi, with no sign of Bien, Beth, Maverick or any of his henchman. There was one more portal in the corner of the room with the pedestal. When Ross and Mike walked through it, they were shocked at the next thing they saw.

They were now in complete nothingness. The entire place they were in was black. Black as far as the eye could see. Ross and Mike seemed to be standing on something solid, but there was no floor. Were there walls? They couldn't tell. But the portal behind them was gone. There was absolutely no going back now.

"Ross!" Mike yelled. "Look!"

Ross and Mike looked ahead, and Maverick was standing there. He looked as grudging as ever, and the blood was still over all over his face from when Ross went insane. He seemed to be waiting for them.

"So, you've come," Maverick said in a deeper voice. "I trust you enjoyed seeing the empty memories of your previous adventures?"

"Those were creepy," Mike admitted.

Maverick started laughing, but Ross was straight to the point. "Maverick, where are we?! How come there's nothing but black?! What are we standing on?"

Maverick chuckled a little while longer. "Ross…Mike…we are at the End of Time."

Ross and Mike were breathless.

"The…End of…Time?" Ross asked, trying to make sure he understood everything.

"Yes," Maverick answered. "We're in a time when nothing exists any longer. This paradox is where you shall remain."

"Let us out of here!" Mike yelled. "Or we'll fight you!"

Maverick started laughing again. "You cannot beat me. That last fight in the pedestal chamber of the temple of the Finis Tempi was hard enough for you to win. If it wasn't for your third friend, then the powers of the Finis Tempi would have been too much for you."

"Powers of the Finis Tempi?" Ross asked. "That thing was giving you powers? Are you saying it's real?"

"Real?!" Maverick yelled loudly. He then started laughing with a high volume and with much more force. "You two fools…" Maverick hissed. "I _am_ the Finis Tempi!"

Ross and Mike started watching in complete awe. Maverick pulled the necklace out of his cloak again and held it. He squeezed it with all his might, and the bright blue light started radiating from it once again. But this time, the light was much stronger and seemed much more forceful.

Suddenly, a strong wind started picking up. Ross and Mike were almost caught off guard by it and had to keep themselves firmly planted on the ground (wherever that was) in order to stay standing. Initially, they were shielding themselves from the high velocity wind, but when they looked up, they saw Maverick was now floating in the air with the bright blue light still shooting out from the jewel on the chain he was wearing around his neck.

"What the...?" Mike asked.

Suddenly, the blue jewel started exploding very violently. As that happened, the black abyss that Ross and Mike were now somehow standing on had morphed into a reddish color, but it was mixed with blue. The two colors started swarming together like watercolor paints, and the colors started subtly changing their colors to green, to orange, to purple, to in between colors like turquoise, maroon, and any other color in between. It was like watching random colors dancing together as they started changing what color they were.

When Ross and Mike were no longer distracted by the colors, they looked up and saw Maverick was starting to shake very violently and uncontrollably. Ross and Mike were really wondering whether or not he would be okay. Then, out of nowhere, Maverick spread his arms and legs like he was a starfish in mid air. The jewel on Maverick's necklace was reacting violently to whatever Maverick was doing. Then, there was a blinding flash of piercing white light that shot out from the jewel and blinded Ross and Mike for a few moments.

After the blind period passed and Ross and Mike could see again, they saw Maverick was gone. In his place was a giant cerulean dragon-like creature. It was over ten feet tall and had short, but very strong looking legs. It had two wings with sharp points at the end of both of them, along with two fairly large hands with claws at the end of each finger. In the middle of its pale stomach was an emblem of the blue gemstone that Maverick was wearing on his necklace.

"So _that's_ the Finis Tempi?" Mike yelled.

"No way we can beat that…" Ross said disappointedly.

Then, Ross heard the twinkling sound coming from his pocket again. He reached inside them and pulled out the bracelets that he had taken from Sandra when she tried to kill him in his early childhood.

"Mike, do you still have those bracelets from when you fought Kline?" Ross asked excitedly.

"I might. Why?"

"Just put them on! They could be our only hopes of winning."

Mike put them on at the same time Ross did. Instantly, the two of them felt a flow of power.

"Yeah! Maverick must have given these to Sandra and Kline just in case someone powerful tried to take over the temple of the Finis Tempi. He must have given these to Sandra and Kline in order to protect them. Heh, how ironic," Ross remarked.

The bracelets on Ross and Mike's wrists started glowing the same color as the color of the Finis Tempi's scales.

"All right," Ross said. "This is it! Let's give it our all!"

"All right!" Mike yelled in agreement.

Ross and Mike started charging in at the Finis Tempi with their bracelets glowing. The two tried not to let themselves get distracted by the weird assortment of colors that was swirling around beneath them as they tried fighting.

This was it. This battle is what it had all come down to. As soon as Ross and Mike stumbled upon that portal, this battle was what everything had come down to and what it was all leading up to. Now, Ross and Mike had to give it their best shot so that they would emerge victorious, just like they had on their previous adventures.

The Finis Tempi took its two massive hands joined them together. It started firing a series of massive blasts of blue energy at the two boys.

Ross and Mike dove out of the way and landed on the invisible floor of The End of Time. They sprung back up and tried to figure out how to get their bracelets to work.

Finally, Mike tried aiming with his bracelet and fired a small stream of blue energy from it. It hit the Finis Tempi in the face, but it didn't seem to effective.

"Oh, no," Mike said. "Ross, I don't think ours are strong enough to stop this thing."

Ross was sprinting around the abyss, hoping he wasn't going to hit an invisible wall or something like that. "Less talk, more fighting."

Mike looked up and saw the Finis Tempi was opening its mouth and started firing a solid ray of the blue energy at Mike.

Instinctively, Mike put up his hands to guard himself from the blast, even though he knew it wouldn't be helpful. But when he did that, a transparent blue force field popped up around him and deflected the blast. The blast shot right back at the Finis Tempi and hit it in the stomach, which seemed to cause more pain to it than the regular blast from the bracelet did.

"Mike, how'd you do that?" Ross yelled over.

"Ross! Try defending from his giant attacks!"

Ross looked up and saw the Finis Tempi was now looming over him. The Finis Tempi raised its claw and started swiping at Ross, and Ross had to stay on his toes from getting hit.

The Finis Tempi swung at Ross ten times, but Ross's reflexes managed to be just enough for him to evade every single attack. When the Finis Tempi took another swing at him, Ross took a great risk and tried jumping onto the creature.

It worked. Ross grabbed onto the arm of the Finis Tempi and started climbing up it. Now that Ross knew he had the great skill in climbing things after his battle with Kip in ancient Rome, he felt more confident about climbing things now.

When Ross was as high as he could go, he saw he was standing on the Finis Tempi's back. The Finis Tempi roared in aggravation when it realized it couldn't attack Ross with its blasts of energy.

The Finis Tempi started stomping around angrily and Ross had to do the best he could to hold on. If he fell off, he could kiss his life good-bye.

After he saw Ross struggling to stay on, Mike decided to try something else. He aimed his two bracelets at the Finis Tempi's eyes and fired.

The Finis Tempi got struck in the eyes by both of Mike's blasts and was soon blinded. That only caused it to roar even louder and get even angrier.

Ross really had to struggle to hold onto it now. But after a long while, he simply lost his grip and fell of its back. He started tumbling down the Finis Tempi's body and landed hard on the invisible floor. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the swirling colors of the abyss in the End of Time mixing together like light paints.

Ross got up and saw the Finis Tempi was (literally) blindly stomping around, and it was dangerously close to him. Ross jumped out of the way over and over to avoid getting stomped by the creature, and somehow, it worked. Ross was able to weave his way around the Finis Tempi's blind "dancing" without getting stomped.

"Mike!" Ross yelled, passing a glance towards his friend.

Mike looked at Ross, and he knew just by looking at Ross's face what Ross wanted him to do.

"When I saw 'three', do it. All right?" Ross ordered.

"Got it!" Mike yelled.

"One…two…three!"

Ross and Mike aimed both of their bracelets at the Finis Tempi and started firing a long stream of the blue energy from them. The two streams of energy hit the Finis Tempi right in the mouth, causing it sincere pain.

But the two teenagers didn't stop there. They continued firing their continuous stream of blue energy from the bracelets at the Finis Tempi. The firing lasted for over a minute. In that time, Ross and Mike were losing a lot of their strength from their bodies to fire the energy, and they could only hope it was working.

After what seemed like the longest time, Ross and Mike couldn't take it anymore. They had used up all their strength to make those two beams of energy that fired right through the roof of the Finis Tempi's mouth, and that didn't look like it did anything.

"Come on!" Mike yelled. Both he and Ross were kneeling down and were pressing their hands onto the invisible ground, trying to regain their strength. "Why isn't it working?!"

"Mike…" Ross said in astonishment. "I think it did…"

Mike looked up to see what Ross was staring at. The Finis Tempi was screeching in pain and was started to fall backwards. Its long snout had a giant hole burned through it that extended all the way back to its eye sockets. Apparently, Ross and Mike caused it more pain with their combined efforts than they thought.

Finally, the Finis Tempi put out its arms and fell to the ground. Bright white lights started surging from it, and Ross and Mike had to shield their eyes from the bright beams. After a long time, they were able to see again, and they saw that the Finis Tempi had actually imploded. It had burst from the inside with a great ring of light that shot out and went through the abyss as far as Ross and Mike could see. The explosion was accompanied by a strong gust of wind that felt more like it was coming from a hurricane.

After staring for a while longer, the two teenagers saw that Maverick was gone. The Finis Tempi was gone in general. The multicolored swirling floor was back to being a solid black, as were all the walls and everything around it. All was quiet. Ross and Mike looked at their wrists to see their bracelets were broken.

"Is it…over?" Mike asked.

The entire abyss that was the End of Time was completely quiet.

"I think so," Ross said. "Maverick fused with the Finis Tempi, and he's gone now. I guess when we defeated the Finis Tempi, we beat him with it."

"Whoa…" Mike said, realizing what it was that they just did.

And so the End of Time was quiet. There didn't seem to be anything left of Maverick or the Finis Tempi. Ross and Mike had officially won.


	18. Returning Home Again

The abyss was dead silent. The black, invisible floors were sustaining Ross and Mike as they stood in the End of Time. There was absolutely nothing happening after the battle with the Finis Tempi.

Ross sighed. He looked at the broken bracelets that helped him defeat Maverick. He took them off and threw them to the side. He slowly started walking through the dark abyss, but had no idea where he was going. He was sighing loudly and put his hands on his hips as he looked around.

"Ross, what is it?"

"There's no way out of here," Ross glumly said as he looked around the dark abyss. The End of Time truly seemed to lack any ways out. "When we killed Maverick, we killed our hopes of getting out, too."

Mike sighed when he realized Ross was right. All the portals that led them there were hone. The Finis Tempi, the being that could supposedly control time, was gone. There was simply no way to get out of the End of Time. It was nothing more than a black box that seemed to have no ends.

"Great," Ross said. "We're gonna die here in this place."

Mike and Ross slumped down on the ground and were silent. Defeating Maverick was bitter sweet. They may have stopped him from destroying the village and anything else that stood in his way, but now they were stuck.

Then, out of nowhere, Ross heard the twinkling sound again. He and Mike perked up upon hearing it.

"Did you hear that?" Mike asked.

"Yeah, it came from over there," Ross said, pointing to the place where the Finis Tempi had been defeated.

It seemed as if the two teenagers had overlooked something. They thought that any traces of Maverick or the Finis Tempi were gone, but they were wrong. There was one thing left: the necklace that Maverick was wearing. The necklace that Ross had woken up wearing the day the journey started when he never put it on to begin with.

"Wasn't Maverick wearing that?" Mike asked.

"Yeah," Ross said. "Maybe it can help us."

Ross took his time as he strolled over to the thick, silver-linked necklace lying on the ground. The blue jewel in the center was glowing.

"Whoa," Ross said when he held it up. "There's something going on."

"Put it on," Mike suggested.

Ross quickly looked at Mike for a few seconds, but quickly took his friend's advice. He slipped the chain over his head and it was soon dangling around his neck.

"Well?" Mike asked.

Ross stared down at the blue jewel in the center of it for a while, but nothing happened. "Nothing."

Mike started slumping until Ross said something that broke the silence.

"Wait!"

"Ross, what is it?"

"I can…I can hear the voice of the Finis Tempi. I hear its voice in my head."

Ross squeezed his eyes shut and tried to comprehend what the voice in his head was saying. Maybe it would help them get back to their real time.

"_You are my new master," _said the voice of the Finis Tempi. _"Now, use my power to fulfill your desires."_

"You're the Finis Tempi?"

"_Yes. And I am only speaking into your thoughts. Your friend over there cannot hear me."_

"Mike can't hear you? So he thinks I'm talking to myself?"

"_Precisely. Now, what is it that you want?"_

Ross stammered for a little while. The voice of the Finis Tempi was very masculine and very demanding. It sounded very stern, yet caring at the same time. Ross could picture the voice belonging to anyone, whether they were a Kindergarten teacher or an army general.

"I…want to go back home. To my time period," Ross choked out. "Mike, too."

"_Very well. Then I shall…"_

"Wait!" Ross called out.

The voice stopped speaking when Ross halted it. Ross thought about what he wanted to say for the longest time before he finally had the guts to say what it was that was on his mind.

"I want to say good-bye to Bien," Ross said. "He's a friend of ours who we met only because we got involved in this whole thing in the first place. I just want to say good-bye to him."

"_Very well. I shall create the portal that will allow you to see him. Hold out your hand."_

Obeying the voice of the Finis Tempi, Ross held out his hand with his palm facing away from him. A somewhat strong wind immediately started picking up and was blowing itself in Ross's face and pushing his hair and clothes back. Then, out of his hand, a white beam of light came spiraling out.

The white light formed a giant white, oval-shaped portal that looked very similar to all the ones they had previously traveled through to get to the End of Time. Then, somehow, Bien's face appeared in the portal.

"Ross?" Bien asked, excitedly seeing Ross through the other side of the portal. Bien was still inside the temple of the Finis Tempi, waiting for his friends to return. "Are you okay? Where's Maverick."

Ross explained everything about the Finis Tempi and how it actually existed. He told Bien about how he and Mike had used the bracelets they stole from Kline and Sandra to fight it and how the necklace Maverick wore gave him the power to control the Finis Tempi.

"Is the Finis Tempi that thing behind you?" Bien asked, pointing behind Ross.

Ross turned around, and a more ghostly version of the Finis Tempi was floating right behind him. It didn't seem nearly as threatening now as it did before. In fact, it almost seemed gentle.

"Yeah, that's it," Ross said. "Anyway, it looks like this will be the last time we see each other, Bien."

Bien looked horrified, but his look was somewhat awe-struck as well. "What do you mean?"

"Mike and I are heading back to our own time," Ross said. "Maverick erased pretty much all my memories of my life the way it was before he interfered. So, it looks like Mike and I are going to be teenagers in the new millennium instead of a few decades before that."

"And I'm going to remain here, in the late 1700's?" Bien asked.

"It's where you belong," Ross tried to say in an understanding voice. "You're accustomed to life there. Mike and I are going to be used to life when we get to it in the twenty-first century, so don't worry about us."

"All right," Bien weakly said. He was sad to say good-bye to his friends, but like he had told Ross before, saying good-bye was never easy. One just had to accept it in order to make it as painless as possible.

Mike ran over to the portal so Bien could clearly see him as well. The portal was slowly starting to close.

"Bye, Bien!" Mike called as he smiled and waved to his friend.

Bien gave a pleasant smile and waved to Mike without saying a word. He did the same to Ross, except with Ross he said a small "See ya."

Ross nervously nodded and kept a small smile across his face. Slowly, the last bit of the portal disappeared, and Bien with it.

Ross sighed. He looked at Mike as soon as the portal was completely gone.

"Well, that's it," Ross said. "We're never going to see him again."

"We may," Mike said, patting Ross on the back a little bit. "We just may."

Ross smiled, but his thoughts were once again interrupted by the voice of the Finis Tempi.

"_Now, where is it that you wish to go?"_

Ross suddenly had a burst of confidence. He balled up his fist and looked up into the black sky of the End of Time, almost like the Finis Tempi was hovering right above him. "Take Mike and I back where we belong: our families and homes in the twenty-first century. The one Maverick forced us to live in!"

"_Very well. All you need to do is open up the portal and you'll be back there."_

"All right," Ross said. Just as he was about to lift his hand up, the voice once again interrupted him.

"_Just one thing."_

"What?"

"_You'll be better off if you don't know that you're supposed to be in another time period. Therefore, I am closing up the time gate that your friend opened in that cave so you cannot come back here any longer and get yourself into any more trouble."_

"Fine," Ross said, not really seeing what the Finis Tempi was talking about.

"_But if you live every day knowing that you're existing several decades after you're supposed to, then life will be painful for you. You'll spend your life wondering what your life was like before Maverick interfered and changed who your father was, how your parents divorced and you later discovered who your father truly was, and every other detail. Therefore, I am sending you back to the day this adventure started. You will have no memory of any of these events. That way, you can get on with your life without knowing that you're not supposed to be a teenager at the turn of the next millennium."_

"Er…all right, if you say so," Ross said.

"_Very well. Now, open your hand."_

Ross opened up his hand and the white material shot out from it again. It created another portal that was going to take Ross and Mike back to the time period where they were supposed to exist now.

When the portal was open, Ross and Mike stood only a few feet in front of the portal. They stared into the blank white light that was coming out from it.

"This is it, Mike," Ross said as he turned towards his friend. "Once we go in there, we're only going to be aware of what things are like in the new millennium. And as far as we'll remember and be aware, we'll have only been alive about a decade prior to that."

"All right," Mike said. "I think I get it."

Both of them took deep breaths and then walked through the portal, engulfed in the white light.

Ross watched as the roller-coaster like movement swallowed him up. He hoped that this would be the last time he'd have to go through it. He just saw the waves of white light shoot past him. Ross felt like he was going thousands of miles an hour-so fast that he would _have_ to be breaking through some time barrier.

Then, after several seconds, the movement just stopped. Ross felt like he was flying in a rocket ship and it just crashed into a rubber mat.

---------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- -------------

It was a clear, but cool morning. The sunlight poured in through the bedroom window. It made the dark blue carpet look brighter and the pale walls more colorful and lively.

Moments later, a loud alarm on a clock started buzzing. It wasn't even 6:00 in the morning, but the clock was going off, indicating to whoever used it that it was time to start the day.

A hand pressed down on one of the buttons on the clock, shutting the alarm off. From a bed right next to the stand the clock was sitting upon, a boy started rising.

His name was Ross McKane. He was a sophomore in High School and was about three months shy of his sixteenth birthday…in 2006. Slowly, he forced himself out of bed. He was wearing only a pair of plaid boxers and a gray t-shirt. As he made his way out of the bed, he felt something cold touch his chest, immediately waking him up a little.

"Huh?" Ross asked in a standard, flat teenaged voice. "What's this?"

Ross reached under his shirt and pulled out whatever it was that he felt. It was a necklace comprised of several think, silver-colored links. At the front of it was a mysterious circle shaped pendent that had a soft, but cold blue in the middle of it.

"When did I get this?" Ross asked as he stared at the necklace in his hand. "I definitely wasn't wearing this thing when I went to bed…" Indeed, Ross had no memory of where he got the necklace from. No memory at all…

Ross spent the rest of his morning doing what he normally does: showering, getting dressed, getting all his things ready for school and heading out to the bus stop. It was a cool March morning. The sun was shining clearly and warmed whatever its rays touched. Ross just sighed as he readjusted the backpack straps he was wearing on his shoulders as he thought about what the day would bring him.

"Hey, Ross!" called out a voice.

Ross turned around and a smile appeared over his otherwise bored face. "Hey, Mike!"

It was Mike, Ross's best friend. Ross and Mike had been good friends for about four and a half years now. His hair was a lot longer and thicker than Ross's and went about three-quarters of the way down his forehead. He didn't try to make it look straight or neat like Ross did. He was about five feet, three inches-about half four inches shorter than Ross was. His voice was still almost as high pitched and kid-like as it was when the two friends first met, but there was now an obvious deep tone and sense of maturity in it.

"How's it hanging?" Mike said to Ross, trying to create small talk.

"Ah, same old, same old," Ross said, turning his attention away from Mike and out in front of him to the empty road as the two of them awaited their school bus.

"Cool," Mike said, not knowing what else to say. "So…how's Alicia doing?"

"She's doing fine," Ross said. Alicia was Ross's girlfriend. They started seeing each other when Ross's parents got back together after being divorced for twelve years. It was hard to believe that it felt like a year and a half had passed since then.

A while later, the school bus finally came and picked the two friends up to take them to school. The ride was boring, as always. Just like how the first four periods of the day were boring before lunch time.

Lunch time wasn't a lot better, but at least Ross could spend it with Mike and Alicia. The three of them sat at a table together and talked about what their day had been like, if anything funny happened, or any stereotypical gossip about the teachers that students made.

While Mike was listening to his iPod, Ross had to sit through Alicia reading through a magazine about fashion accessories-stuff Ross honestly couldn't have cared less about.

"Did you see the picture of this dress!" Alicia asked as she flipped through the pages of the magazine, making sure Ross saw every single article of clothing in the catalogues. "I saw _the_ most random picture for an ad ever! It has a girl wearing a dress, and she's kneeling on the beach and _holding a bunny!"_

Ross pretended to be shocked. "Wow," he said rather lifelessly.

"I know!" Alicia said loudly. "Oh, by the way, I just got _really_ hungry, so I'm gonna go up to the vending machine and get a box of M&M's, k?"

"Sure," Ross said pleasantly.

Alicia got up from her chair and ran over to a vending machine across the cafeteria. Ross let out a giant sigh of relief and covered his eyes in his arm for a few seconds. When he looked up, he saw Mike was grinning at him.

"What's so funny?" Ross asked plainly.

"That look-you look like you've just had to sit through a lecture on harvesting dirt!" Mike said, still listening to his iPod.

"Heh. Try listening to complaints about prom dresses every day, _then_ tell me what I look like! What are you listening to, anyway?"

"U2," Mike said with a smile on his face. "I downloaded it last night, along with some other songs from Sting and Metallica."

Ross smirked. "You're a real man of the eighties, aren't you, Mike? And that really says something, considering we weren't around then."

"Duh, of course we didn't exist in the eighties. Quick, before Alicia comes back-you want to get together this afternoon and just hang out at the brook by your house?"

"Why do we have to plan it before Alicia gets back?" Ross asked.

"Because if she hears us making plans, she'll invite herself and before you know it, the two of you will be kissing more than hanging out."

"Fine, I got no problem with it. What time?"

"4:00 good?"

"Sounds great. See you then."

The rest of the day dragged on. After Ross and Mike had completed the remainder of their classes for that day, both of them got home on the school bus. It was about 3:00 by the time Ross got home, so he went into his room and started working on his homework. The time slowly ticked by, but he put as much effort into the work as he could. After that, he went outside to the brook by his house and waited for Mike to show up.

In no time, Mike walked up to the brook and the two of them just started talking like friends do.

The two were walking along the muddy edge of the river. The sound of the flowing water was easing and seemed to take away any stress that the body had.

"So, Ross, what do you think of Sophomore year. Is it tough, or what?" Mike asked.

"Well, considering you've asked me this about fifty times since the school year began, I'll tell you, it's not hard. It's challenging."

Mike scoffed. "Easy for you to say. Let me guess, you made honor rolls for all three terms so far?"

"Yup," Ross said, looking at the muddy ground as the two of them continued walking along the side of the stream. Then, something caught Ross's breath.

"Hey, Ross, you okay?" Mike asked, stopping and looking at his friend. "What's wrong?"

"Mike, have you noticed that before?" Ross asked.

"Noticed what?"

"That."

Ross pointed to a mysterious cave that was sitting along the side of the stream. Although nothing was happening around or in it, there was something dark and brooding about it. The cave didn't look very big; it looked as if it were just barely big enough to fit both teenagers into it.

"Huh." Mike said casually. "I never noticed that cave before. Let's go look inside it!"

Mike started hurrying along the side of the stream and towards the cave.

"Wait, Mike, I don't think we should…" Ross started. But it was too late. Mike was gone and hurrying off towards the cave. Blowing a breath of air out from the bottom of his mouth and up into his short dark hair, Ross followed.

When both of them were at the entrance to the cave, they looked in. The inside looked dark and murky. Normally, it would be very dark, but based on the sun's location, there was plenty of light to see the inside of the cave. And the two of them could have sworn they saw drawings on the cave.

"Hey Ross, what do you think those drawings are?" Mike asked as he slowly went inside the cave.

"I have no idea," Ross admitted as he followed Mike into the brooding cave.

"Hey Ross, look!" Mike said. He pointed to a picture that looked like it had been drawn with a chalky material, but was obviously something stronger if it stood the test of time like that.

"What is _that?_" Ross asked.

The drawing appeared to be of a winged demon and it seemed to have a large circular center with several markings around the side of it. It also had a picture of three people who appeared to be fighting a man in robes. Another picture showed what looked like a feminine figure looking like she was about to do something drastic and a male figure looking upset-possibly crying about what the female figure was doing. It also showed what looked like a giant computer, only it looked like it was holding something far more complex than just data.

"I wonder what sick-minded kids drew these pictures," Mike said as he looked at the weird drawings on the cave's walls.

"Yeah," Ross said. "It's amazing what kids can do when they're bored."

Ross studied all the pictures and noticed that the author signed his name down at the bottom. The name read: BIEN- 1729

"Bien…" Ross said. "For some reason, that name sounds kind of familiar. I could have sworn I've heard it before."

"Hmmm…me, too," Mike said. "Maybe it was just the name of a character in a movie or something."

"Yeah," Ross said. Somehow, he doubted it was more important than that.

Bien had indeed drawn those pictures, except now, they were almost 280 years old. Ross and Mike had no memory of that adventure through time, but just so Bien would remember his friends, he drew rough sketches of them and memorable moments of their adventure on the walls of that cave. And just as the Finis Tempi said, the white time portal was closed up.

Then something caught Ross's attention: it was the picture of the boy watching a girl do something terrible and look really distressed about it. Something clicked in Ross's head when he saw that picture.

"…_Beth…"_ Ross thought to himself when he saw the picture. He reached his hand out and touched the picture. Almost like he was remembering Beth's ultimate sacrifice during the adventure, Ross let out a sad smile. Then, a small tear fell from the corner of his eye.

"Whoa," Mike said when he saw Ross showing signs of weakness. "You're not turning emo on me, are you?"

"Huh?" Ross said. It was then he realized he had just shed a tear. "Weird…where'd that come from?"

Ross and Mike stayed for a few more minutes and investigated the drawings on the wall. Both of them were completely oblivious that they were just getting back from another journey. They started walking away from the cave when they were finished investigating the drawings.

"Bien…" Ross whispered. "He was a good friend of mine. I know it."

**THE END**


End file.
